An empire reborn
by Kung-lou
Summary: Ch 9 added SailormoonRanma cross The moon kingdom was completely destroyed so who's trying to reinvent it
1. The Death of a Kingdom

An Empire reborn

Ch1 : The Death of a Kingdom

Thud!

Serenity sat on her intricately carved wooden throne absentmindedly running her fingers across the golden inlays. Everything about her throne spoke of power and wealth, from the finely carved designs to the inlaid gold and precious gems. Only a monarch who held absolute control over her kingdoms resources could have commanded the time and skill required to build such a fine piece.

Thud!

Even with such a display of extreme wealth and obvious power her throne was not gaudy. This sent a powerful message to supplicants that the person siting in that throne was confident in her own power without the need for outrages displays and demonstrations. Looking around the giant chamber, which held the throne to her kingdom, Serenity could not help but be proud of the craftsmen that had built her throne and modelled the room, which housed it. If her throne was a work of art, then this chamber was a monument. Her throne room really was the pinnacle of her reign, demonstrating the wealth and prosperity of her empire, a wealth that had been generously shared among her people.

Thud! Crack!

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the solid timber doors that barred entrance to the great hall. It had taken 5 years and hordes of master artists to build those doors and yet it had taken her would be destroyers only minutes to raze them. It wouldn't be long now before they gave and allowed the legions of the Queen Beryl to enter. They would kill her but not before destroying her kingdom, her death would not be enough to satisfy them and there was little stopping them from doing so. She had spent all her life expanding the kingdom and following the path of peace. Where there had been a choice of diplomacy and war she had always taken diplomacy.

Thud! Crack!

Her people had loved her for it. Trade had flourished and people led more enriched and satisfying lives. The nine Senshi were all feared warriors who safeguarded her kingdom but they were more guardians than harbingers of war, their armies more ceremonial than battle hardened veterans. In their lifetime they had not needed to be anything more. That had been their down fall, her downfall and the end to what was once the most wealthy and powerful kingdom in history. Her armies, generals and Senshi had not been ready to face a seasoned enemy determined to see their kingdoms destruction and death.

They might have been caught off guard but they had not gone down easily and she was proud of her people for that. Military might was, after all, only one way to measure the power and potential of an empire. This should have been the peak of her reign, resources had been pouring in from comets and asteroid belts that had been tamed for the greater good, bringing more wealth into her empirical coffers, enough to fund massive building programs.

Sailor Mercury was making great strides developing technologies to ease her subject's lives and new colony ships were nearing completion. She would have soon been in the position to spread her wealth throughout the galaxy as she had throughout the solar system. It was said that the people of the moon kingdom lived the lives of kings and queens. No one had suspected the betrayal that came from within or its suddenness.

Armies marched on the moon kingdom from earth, all lead by Queen Beryl, the only sovereign who had not accepted incorporation into the moon Kingdom. Before her overt declaration of war, she had remained on good terms with the foreign power so close to her own kingdom. Almost to the extent of being part of the moon kingdom by proxy, even if Beryl had stubbornly resisted the benefits, which would have flowed to earth, had she joined the moon kingdom. Why then had Beryl staged such a sudden and viscous attack on her people? Serenity asked herself even as she felt the Senshi of Saturn die in one of the many skirmishes that still dotted her once great kingdom.

When each of the royal families had joined her empire she had granted them great powers in exchange for ensuring the peace over her kingdom. Granting such great powers had created a link between them, strong enough that she had felt their deaths long before official word had reached her palace on the moon. The link also told her more accurately than any computer generated report how short the war between her empire and the earth would be.

Now it was almost over, with the death of the princess and Senshi of Saturn only her death remained to completely eliminate any hope of her kingdom every recovering from it's annihilation. Why had Beryl committed herself to such a destructive act? Beryl had always been a friend, a fellow monarch who understood the strains of rule. Queen Serenity could not imagine what Beryl must be thinking of. After all, surely the total destruction and pillaging of such a wealthy kingdom benefited no one in the medium to long term.

Crack!

It was time. "Pluto, come"

"Your majesty why did you not let me prevent this by using my powers with the time gate, my death would have been well spent to stop this … madness." Serenity looked at Pluto's impassioned face and felt saddened that she had let her people down. Both her subjects and her Senshi deserved more than the inevitable conclusion to this war. She felt comfort however knowing that her actions today may somehow absolve her failure in this time by providing some positive effect in the future. Besides, even had she allowed Pluto to spend her life stopping Beryl the moon kingdoms destruction was inevitable, her kingdom was just not geared to battle the militaristic hordes of an over populated earth.

"Pluto, you should know the restrictions placed on you by the time gates better than I. Certainly you know them well enough not to ask that question of me. No, all I ask is that you go find someone worthy of wielding this. No matter how far into the future you need to look," she added with a weighted tone.

Serenity handed over the Ginzuishou, the source of her empires power or at least one of the sources of her power. All the others had been destroyed or so well guarded that their use would be neigh impossible after what she planned. "I have borrowed enough energy to finish this, now do as I say." The expression on Pluto's face broke Serenity's heart but she knew that Pluto would obey without question. Her Senshi had always had faith in her but today that faith had been betrayed in a spectacular and final fashion.

Pluto bowed before vanishing with the only remaining accessible crystalline source of the moon kingdoms power. It would be the last command Serenity would give before she too fell to Beryl. It would also be the last time Pluto obeyed any order that she gave, the time gates were often harsh on its guardians.

Craaaaackk!

Serenity straightened proudly on her throne "soooo…" sneered Beryl walking in through the broken doors of her throne room. "It seems that the charmed life of the moon bitches have come to an end."

Serenity smiled sadly at Beryl "yes it has, its legacy has been broken at the height of its power. But today there are no victors." Focusing on the power she had borrowed from the Ginzuishou and concentrating her own last remaining strength she wrought a spell that would cast the souls of Beryl and her minions into a pocket dimension. Today she had lost a kingdom and as a result of this spell would lose her life, but Beryl would still receive judgement for her actions from the last surviving monarch of her powerful and ancient nation before she died. Imprisonment, a life sentence would be too good for her and she would not miss the opportunity to act by verbally sparing with Beryl. "Today your actions will be judged by moon law and history will forget us both!" Serenity's voice rang out clearly as she passed judgement before releasing her spell.

The final blackness of death followed but impossibly her spirit was pulled back to the world of the living, tugged towards the irresistible draw of the Ginzuishou through time.

* * *

Ehri gently touched the scabrous surface of the panel in front of her, the alien texture conflicted with the knowledge that she had taken part in developing it. Or rather she had supervised the development of the rough inorganic fibre that covered the inside and outside of the ship. So new and experimental that it had not yet been named, the scaly self-assembling material that covered every surface of the ship nevertheless held great civic and military applications. This sponsored program was to be the first true showcase of its abilities. Used in an equally untested and experimental colony ship it would either prove its usefulness here or become one of sciences interesting but inevitably useless extravagances.

It still amazed her that she was actually on a ship headed for another galaxy and she was saddened that it had taken such disastrous circumstances to put her there. She had never dreamed that she would take part in the colonisation project to spread humanity to the stars but events had provided more opportunity than her military rank ever had, enabling her to achieve what she had once deemed impossible.

The constant tug of acceleration, which was noticeable despite the magnetic fields generated to dampen the inertial effect of the rapid acceleration the ship was undergoing, was a constant reminder that they were not just colonists but refugees, refugees fleeing for their lives from a battle that still waged strongly. Refugees who were never meant to be on this unfinished, unsupplied and highly experimental colony ship but rather enjoying the fruits of their labour in their wealthy and prosperous kingdom.

In less than a minute Ehri would no longer be able to see any evidence of the planetary system that had been her home through the view port, 'their home' she thought looking around at the people she had smuggled aboard, all crew now whatever their profession had been before. "Maam, we have leaks in the cooling pipes in the electronics section." Bokkhai cried urgently as he scrambled down the cramped corridor that led to the command room, or rather command pit Ehri thought wryly looking around at the cramped space. There was no air resistance in space so the size and shape of the ship should not have mattered greatly in the design but it had certainly played a great part. Not that she was complaining now, the smaller ship had taken less time to build and had provided them all a way to escape with their lives.

"Don't panic Bokkhai, it should have fixed itself by now, but if it hasn't here," she handed him a fine metallic powder in a clear vial, it was the last of the nannites which could be used to speed up the self assembling of the rough fibre which coated the ship. "Sprinkle some of this on, but only a little bit there's a limited amount and who knows what else will go wrong aboard this travelling experiment." She had little faith in those scientist who lived only with the world of theories and mathematics, in her experience things happened which no amount of probabilities could account for.

Ideally she would have been commanding a crew of scientist and military officers, people whom knew the ship inside out and had planned for every contingency on their maiden voyage. As it was they were in a highly experimental ship with untried and often uncompleted systems, which she barely understood, with a crew of scared civilians traumatised by the events they had fled. Even Bokkhai had only recently joined the program and his over eagerness to please his superiors only seemed to end in disaster. He would get over it with age, experience and maturity, if he were given the time, nothing was certain anymore – only death. Death seemed to come sooner for her friends and colleagues than anyone had thought. Once again she ran her hand over the scabrous surface of the panel in front of her, this time exerting a little more pressure and watched as the inorganic fabric rolled back revealing a command display from underneath the protective coating which covered all surfaces of the ship.

The florescent display showed the status of all the ships systems demonstrating how unfinished the ship actually was, she was amazed the ship could even fly, the fact that it did was a credit to the expertise and thoroughness of the engineers and scientist who had built it. Another tap and the scabrous fibre once again covered over the display, she would prey for the souls of those engineers and scientist who had built this marvel as they where almost certainly dead by now, and the reason was not the little known effect of relativity but more likely the result of the war, which was being fought even as they fled. A war which they had been losing badly to the barbarians of Earth.

The Senshi of Mars had been the most skilled of the warrior guardians who protected the worlds of the moon kingdom but even she had not been a match for an entire army. With a hypermnesia that was frightening she could still see her commanding officer giving her final orders over the dreadful and painful sound of melee. Seconds into the surprise attack and they were already being overrun despite their obvious technological and combat advantage.

"Ehri, get as many civilians as you can into that colony ship and accelerate as hard as the engines will stand. Take Bokkhai if he's still alive," it was an order she had obeyed without question but she couldn't help but wonder at the fate of the powerful kingdom she had called home. They had been attacked, ambushed really and apart from recognising Queen Beryl's motif she didn't know much else.

"Eizhan," she addressed a slightly overweight man who was still huddling in the corner. She didn't blame the man for his grief and she forgave him his tears, he was still holding his dead and bloodied family when she had found him and dragged him to the ship. A ship that may yet be their coffin. "Please Eizhan, put aside your grief and collect the crew together we need to make a list of everyone's name and skills for…"

"Ma'am, its still leaking ma'am," even as Bokkhai returned with the nearly empty bottle of nanites she had specifically asked him to use sparingly a fleshy thunk signalled a piece of the synthetic bulk head blowing out. The hiss, which was followed by a rapidly lowering temperature, signalled another leak. Trying in vein to hold back a frustrated growl Ehri snatched the bottle off the incompetent private before she lost sight of it in the mist of condensing gases. A beeping, which was almost masked by the hissing of over pressurised gas confirmed her worst fears about home, a home she would most likely never see again.

With the addition of some of the metallic powder she watched as the self-assembling fibre was aided by the nanites she just added to heal the latest leak. "Show me," she snapped, if things continued like this, fine workmanship or no, the ship would not get them to their destination or home again.

Civilians crowded the corridors and holed up in corners as Eizhan slowly made his way among them. 150 people she had saved, 150 out of the millions which had perished when Beryls rampaging army had set into effect something which would within a generation leave mars and for all she knew the rest of the habitats in the solar system nothing more than barren wastelands incapable of supporting life. A generation she knew had already long past.

She would not tell the people on board about the automated and encoded message which had been relayed from a military installation on mars by speed of light communication. It had just caught up with them and it had not been good news. The moon kingdom had fallen, no survivors. Such news would no doubt be devastating for the people on board, almost as much as news that by the time they got to their destination several hundred lifetimes would have past.

"By Serenity what have you done!" Ehri cursed. The leak had sealed with minimal loss of the compressed gas that cooled all the sensitive electronics but she could see evidence of severe damage to the electronics that the scabrous fibre was supposed to protect. It was almost as if he had poured the entire bottle straight onto the sensitive equipment allowing the nanites to wreak havoc. The instruments were badly etched and corroded, not something she wanted to see on such a vital system as life support.

With her knowledge of the systems she could only guess at the effects of such a damage-causing mistake. Once again she lamented escaping on the experimental ship with such an incompetent crew even though intellectually she knew nothing else was fast enough to out run Beryl's crusade or escape her blockade and that the very experimental nature of the ship had saved her life.

Ehri forced herself to ease her glare from the almost cringing Bokkhai, it wasn't his fault that he hadn't undergone the required training - he hadn't had the time before Beryl changed everything by invading. Hopefully Eizhan had done a better job in his task. No one would have to know that the invasion they had escaped had turned the once glorious moon kingdom into a necropolis and by the time they returned she could blame their homes destruction on the passage of time. She needed all of them to band together to increase all of their chances of survival and when they did get home they would be the regrowth after an all too effective purging. The moon kingdom would live again, rising from its ashes.

Pocketing the vial of nannites she rushed to see how Eizhan was going, she had noticed a reversal in the ever-present acceleration that she had come to associate with the movement of the colony ship. Either way it meant that they would be arriving at their destination, orbit around a carefully studied life-supporting world. Or at least as studied as it could be from afar or with probes. She would need to prepare people for there arrival and organise them for the return trip. At least she hoped she could persuade them to return with her rather than stay as was originally intended.

Nodding gratefully at Eizhan and glancing spuriously at the list he handed her she turned and activated an intercommunication device. Why that had been completed with so much of the other parts of the ship in disarray she would never know. No doubt so the engineers could listen to music while they worked, it seemed a silly reason now after what she had experienced.

"For those who didn't catch my name before I pulled you from your homes or workplace I am Ehri, a lieutenant in the Martian special forces. I like you never expected to be uprooted from the life I knew by Beryls treacherous invasion but we must make the most of circumstances. For the past few hours we have been travelling at near the speed of light towards Circinus galaxy. As you will no doubt have guessed by now we will be reaching our destination soon, the destination should be a habitable planet orbiting a blue sun much like mars and with the supplies on the ship you all should be able to make a decent life there as a community. But even if it is possible to stay there when we arrive and live a decent life I want you all to consider joining with me in repairing this ship so that we can return home, the war should be over and we can rebuild the lives, which were so quickly destroyed by Beryl's treachery."

"Can't we do both? There is no life for me there with my family dead and my home destroyed and I know I am not the only one that wants to forget what we just fled."

Ehri tried not to frown at the murmuring this comment generated, she wanted to return home and do her part for the war effort even if generations had passed by. "We fled before this ship was fully stocked or even finished built, it is impossible to do both. If even a few decide to stay there will not be enough supplies for the rest of us to return. Please discuss it among yourselves," even though she wanted to get back she could not force the crew to go back. She was one against a hundred and fifty, even if she wanted to she could not force their decision. Still they were Martians and even though the brilliant blue star visible over the crest of the blue and green mars like planet provided a symbol of possibilities she had little doubt that the outcome of the discussions would be positive. Their Martian blood called out for revenge and righteous resistance.

Leaving the crew to discuss their future in an ever more audible and heated argument she went to investigate the small tug of inertia that she could still feel. For the acceleration of the ship to be noticeable even now in orbit there had to be something wrong. Her last brief investigations told her that there was nothing wrong with the dampeners but what other explanation could there be? Whatever the answer every minute that past with the ship still accelerating potentially meant generations passing back home due to time dilation so the sooner a decision was made the better.

And safer, she was still waiting for the effects of the damaged electronics to become apparent, with the life support system so damaged and the ship so crowded it would be safer to use the suns gravity to catapult them home if they were to decide on that course of action.

"Has a decision been made, I am not confident about just quietly taking the course of action that Beryl has deemed for us. It makes me uncomfortable to meekly accept the lifestyle that has been thrust on us. My choice is to go back what about you," Ehri yelled making herself heard over the raucous.

To her surprise it was Eizhan that came forward with the decision of the civilians in exile, "it doesn't feel right to us either lieutenant. Get us home safely," Ehri smiled she was worried that they would make the wrong decision and force her to do something drastic to change there minds like defenestration.

* * *

Pluto knelt silently over the child that would one day wield the Ginzuishou. Her breathing was haggard and uneven but she would accomplish what had been asked of her before she died. In her last moments she had been permitted to freely browse the future time streams. That ability had been given to the guardians of the time gate with the intention of finding an appropriate successor but instead she would use it to fulfil her queen's last request. She would trust the gates redundancy systems to find a replacement in her stead. Amongst the flows of time she had found a soul that was as great as it was beautiful or at least which had the potential to be. This was a child who Serenity would have approved off and perhaps even fostered had she been alive in this era.

Still looking down at the chubby infant before her she could not see the potential as clearly as she had from the time gates but her powers were already failing as she neared death. "Serenity, know this. I have obeyed your last request even though it meant my death."

Drawing out the crystal that her queen had entrusted her she slowly merged it with the child. The bond would grow stronger as he aged and by his teens it would no longer be possible to remove for any length of time without killing him. By that time he should have unconsciously learnt to prevent its removal anyway so she wasn't worried.

"Ranma, the purity of this crystal will help you live up to your potential. I have no doubt." When he learnt to yield the power either unconsciously or consciously he would be a wolf among the sheep in terms of power. It was one of the reasons she had been so cautious when selecting a bearer for such a great power, he would bear enough power to affect every life on earth. If only Serenity had been alive to nurture and guide him to ensure that he only used his power for good and not for self-gain as had been the custom, it would certainly put most of her worries to rest.

With a last agonised breath Sailor Pluto, guardian of the time gates and the last surviving reminder of the great kingdom long forgotten to time vanished. The consequences of browsing the time stream had caught up to her. Only the young child it seemed could see the disembodied and very confused Serenity in the corner before she too vanished.

* * *

Setsuna growled in disgust as she scrubbed the dirt from under her chipped fingernails. If her mother was to be believed she was of noble blood and yet here she was grubbing around in the dirt trying to grow enough food to survive like some peasant. Not that it really mattered if she was of noble blood her not, it was said that everyone noble or common lived like royalty before the earth queen had foolishly invaded the powerful moon kingdom. The few magic users remaining after the war and the rapidly failing pieces of tech backed up those claims quite well, but soon they too would vanish into history leaving only poverty in their wake.

Only two generations after the war between Earth and the Moon kingdom and memories from that time were already being forgotten. Even the reason for the war was unclear since all those responsible had either been killed or simply disappeared. Beryl and her legions never returned even as reports of the total destruction of the moon kingdom were delivered to officials back on earth. The resulting power vacuum and cessation of trade between such a wealthy neighbour and earth started the inevitable collapse of Beryl's own kingdom as petty nobles hastened the expenditure of resources in a power struggle.

Thousands died of plague and starvation, even more from civil wars. If Setsuna had to guess, her children or their children would know nothing of their legacy instead only the constant burden of trying to feed themselves, how far they had fallen.

"_Would you change that?"_

Setsuna jerked as a voice pounded into her head, _"or would you watch the inevitable flow of time pass passively?"_

She clutched the wall with one hand and her head with the other while trying to understand what was being asked of her. _"What would you do with eternal life and the chance to make a difference? Would you create an empire or watch empires crumble?"_

Setsuna grunted in pain as her wet hand slipped from its purchase causing her to fall uncontrolled onto the unforgivingly tiled floor. "Who are you, what are you asking, what do you want from me?" she pushed out against the unbearable pressure inside her head.

"_You've heard of the time gates? I need a guardian and I'm offering you the choice, the chance and the opportunity. No trace remains of the old guardian – she broke the fundamental rules of guardianship and was judged, her potential successor remains lost in time and may not be usable or even able to take up the role. Will you accept the position even without full knowledge, knowing it could mean your death?"_

She had heard whispers of a secret weapon, which had not been used during the war, and if this were it then it would give her uncontrollable power. Yet, even as the voice scrambled her thoughts she was hesitant. The time gate was a relic from the moon kingdoms past, a powerful and mysterious past. Did she want to get involved, it was a great risk? It was certainly better than the life that she had here and the future that she looked forward to even if might mean her death. "I accept," and it would stop the dreadful pounding of her head.

* * *

Setsuna stood silently over the cot judging the suitability of the sleeping child within. Her staff was heavy in her hand as she considered what she was about to do. With this action she would set in motion a series of events, which would, she hoped lead to the establishment of Crystal Tokyo. A kingdom, which would rival Beryl's and contain much of what she admired from the moon kingdom. Or at least what the stories told of that time, even after all the time she had spent guarding a moon kingdoms relic, she had only discovered bits and pieces about the moon kingdom and its past. Still combined with the stories she had been told and the bits of tech she had recovered it must have been a wondrous place.

It had been a long time since she had accepted guardianship of the time gate and she had spent it all learning what she could and couldn't do with its powers. Endless lifetimes were spent learning to manipulate events and people to create circumstances that would lead to different outcomes, emulating the forbidden powers of the gates. Even more was spent gathering tech and artefacts from her own time so that when the time came she could create what she dreamed off so often. It seemed strange but apart from the initial offering, the time gates had not spoken to her any information about itself and its place in the once powerful and dominant moon kingdom.

Crystal Tokyo. She now felt confidant enough in her control over the gates and her experience over humanity and its history to attempt its creation. The first step would be to create new Senshi to help in its creation and guard against its destruction.

She had not forgotten the reason for the old time guardians destruction or the whispers of a potential heir lost in time. But with so long learning the intricacies of the position she felt that she had little to fear of being usurped, but it was wise to be cautious. Setsuna held out her staff now glowing brightly and lightly touched the sleeping infant with its tip. Artificially created memories of a past life and magical powers not seen in countless generations would ensure their loyalty to the idea of Crystal Tokyo. Firm guidance and leadership during their adolescence and the awakening of their powers would cement their loyalty to her.

Still it was a shame that browsing the future time streams would mean her death since as she had found out during her many experiments with society, no matter what her experience in the area of manipulating events there was always room for error. Setsuna could see no obstacles to her plans, all traces and memory of the moon kingdom had as she'd foreseen vanished within three generations of its down fall as survival had taken priority for the poverty stricken citizens and its magic had seemingly died out not long after the disappearance of Beryl and her generals.

That was one of the reasons she had chosen Japan for the seat of her power, it was the least likely country to create any problems. Magic had died out in this part of the world first and it was the furthest from where Beryl held her court so it was unlikely for any artefacts to turn up with the re-emergence of magic to disrupt her plans. At least unexpected artefacts, she planned to gift her soldiers with enough powerful artefacts to cement their position as rulers over this pitifully backward world.

The Senshi of Pluto straightened her seifuku and grasping her staff disappeared with the intention of 'reawakening' the other Senshi, she would need seven more after all.


	2. A Political satire?

An empire reborn

Ch2: A political satire?

The relief Ehri felt at the decision that the refugee's of the long since destroyed Moon Kingdom arrived at was short lived as the ship jolted, knocking the gathering of Martian survivors off their feet. Even though she was sure they would decide to return home to rebuilt there shattered home and seek vengeful justice, there was that seed of doubt that they would choose the easier path, but now that they had made their decision she would see about fulfilling it by ensuring that the experimental and highly technical colony ship held together long enough to get the to safety.

The scaly but forgiving fabric that covered the surfaces of the ships interior prevented injuries in most cases as the jolt shook the crowded ship but the suddenness of the motion created confusion and panic, panic which was compounded further by the sudden dimming of lights and visibility throughout the ship, followed by a deep and regular sounding alarm. 'Why was it' Ehri thought in frustration 'that the very mechanism, which was supposed to precede an orderly evacuation most often, facilitated the exact opposite by causing panic amidst the untrained and incompetent?'

"Ma'am," urged Bokkhai urgently as Ehri frantically tapped at a consol that had appeared from underneath the rough fabric that covered all of the surfaces of the ship. They both tried to ignore the growing hysteria among the crews even as Eizhan tried to calm them, proving a surprising ally against the civilian unrest.

Hisssss

Ehri grunted in satisfaction as the walls exploded out opening up into individual survival pods. This action further cramped the refugee's by reducing the immediate standing room and further fuelled their fear-tinged panic as they were pressed together. Mass hysteria was always a possibility in these situations but as the ranking military commander it was her responsibility to try and diffuse the situation. "Listen to me! Everyone must step into a pod." She cried trying to make herself heard above the noise of the alarm and the screaming of one hundred and fifty fearful adults.

As if Beryl's army had known that the children of the moon kingdom were their future she had viscously targeted them first, leaving the majority of the refugees mourning parents. Even in war some actions were unforgettable and unforgivable. Beryl and earth had earned the unrelenting hatred of the survivors on board this ship. Still managing children would have made crowd control that much more difficult.

"It is important else you risk death by asphyxiation," Ehri tried to continue, increasingly frustrated at the undisciplined actions of the refugee's, actions that would eventually lead to their death in such a critical situation unless they calmed down. Military disciple would have long since got this ship home but instead she was forced to deal with this rabble. It was one of the reasons she had first joined the military, an attempt to limit her exposure to the foolishness she often saw outside the well-trained ranks of the Martian fighters. 'If we survive this, I'll kill them myself,' she thought viscously with frustration. It wasn't a serious thought but it made her feel slightly better.

"Bokkhai, get Eizhan to start loading the pods, I'll control them from here. This is one system I made sure that I understood from the start of this project." As Bokkhai started to make his way down to the lower deck towards the small island of sanity that surrounded Eizhan, Ehri turned back to the consol that controlled the pod system.

Under normal circumstances the life supporting pod system would never have been necessary, the level of technology engineered into the colony ship had been so advanced that every conceivable situation could have been overcome through infinite redundancy alternatives long before there was any need for external interference by the pilot. That didn't stop the engineers from installing triple redundancy checks into the life pods so that in the event of an emergency there would be no question that the crew would survive. For that she was grateful, she was already feeling the effects of oxygen deprivation and if she was then she knew that some of the crew were feeling worse.

A series of hisses followed by the thudding lock of the seals allowed Ehri to thank the fact that there was at least one co-operative citizen among the refuges. The sound of the pods being loaded meant that Bokkhai and Eizhan had been successful in calming the crowd, the lack of oxygen she knew would have also contributed to the rapid calming of the unsettled mob.

Oxygen deprivation often rendered even the ruleiest person sleepy and docile. It wouldn't be long before the entire crew were locked away safely and asleep in their own personal synthetic cacoon and safe from the quickly depressurizing cabin. "Ma'am the last of the civilians are currently entering the pods, I have reserved you one close to the command deck," mumbled Bokkhai in a drowsiness induced by a lack of oxygen.

"I will not be going Bokkhai, this ship may be the most advanced piece of machinery our entire kingdom has ever managed to build and yet complete AI has eluded us. Someone needs to drive this ship and counter any potential problems that arise on the way home and I am the only one with both the expertise and experience."

Besides this isn't the only experimental relic on this ship she thought to herself as she pushed a wearily protesting Bokkhai to a pod. A slightly modified series of self-assembling and maintaining nanites to the ones that which made up the exoskeleton of the colony ship, flooded her body. It was an edge she hoped would let her at least see the ship home even if there was no one to revive her when she arrived. The Refugees would survive to become the new colonists on earth. The moon kingdom would rise again, even if her death were necessary she would make sure of it.

* * *

Ranma watched the pig tailed blond with the blue skirt and pink gum boots intently. Serenity had been telling him about a strong silver millennium signal coming from Tokyo for a while now. More worrying than these self made super heroes though and of more immediate concern, was the emergence of a sporadic signal that indicated the stirring of Beryl. All his life he had heard of the grand empire based on and around the moon and how Beryl had been directly responsible for its fall. Someone with that much power would be much more of a threat than some badly dressed school girls using a powerful but underutilised relic from the past.

Behind him a ghostly image of Serenity stood, he had found from experience that it was only his connection with the Ginzuishou that allowed him to see her. Leaning against a tree stump just back from the tree line was a beaten, bloodied and unconscious Genma, 'it wouldn't do to get father involved in this,' Ranma thought not taking his eyes on the pacing girl before him.

"It seems you were worried about nothing Serenity, even using those remnant artefacts from the moon kingdom the school girls are weak and untrained. I don't know how they generated such a strong signal. From what you've told me Beryl is the main concern here," Ranma just glared at disgust at Serenity as she grinned crazily obviously trying not to burst out laughing.

"Even when you take into account the others hiding across the other side of the park they don't add up to much and how they successfully expect to pull of this ambush while making so much noise is beyond me." He sometimes forgot that those posing as warriors lacked the training or the experience that he took for granted, he often forgot the effort it had taken to get himself to that level. Ranma was never one to dwell on the past except to learn from his mistakes.

"Not everyone has the benefits of a lifetime of training before they are thrust into conflict Ranma," Serenity reminded him before walking closer to the square in order to get a better view of the figure emerging from a portal in the ground. "Beryl's troops have learnt new tricks," she frowned as the foot soldier suddenly disguised herself as a journalist before the blond girl had a chance to turn around and catch the real identity of her visitor.

"Even armed with their new tricks, if this is the calibre of Beryl's troops she would've had to out number you a great deal to do the damage you've told me she wrought." He couldn't believe that the clumsy ambush hadn't failed already, the noise had grown louder at the enemies appearance. 'Unbelievable,' Ranma shook his head in disgust at the girls lack of skill and ability even with the free power up they were receiving from the moon kingdom relics they were inefficiently wielding.

"They did outnumber us by a great deal Ranma, but remember I had not invested nearly enough time or money into defence, as you are now, you would be more than an equal to any of my premier warriors. That's not including the power imbued by the Ginzuishou." The self-recrimination in the ghostly figures eyes almost made Ranma flinch, it was a wound that had never quite healed and it was one of the reasons that the old queen had really pushed him to acquire the strength that she had lacked.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just watch this show shall we, nothing we've seen so far accounts for such a strong silver millennium signal and besides it's just getting interesting." Ranma replied disinterestedly, making sure that his aura was carefully concealed as what he assumed was one of Beryl's generals appeared on top of the clock tower. "That one is much stronger than the other, still not much of a threat if they manage to pull off this ambush properly," he commented doubtfully, comparing the relative power levels of the two sides and glancing at the amateurish ambush attempt.

Serenity obviously agreed with his assessment of the situation as she casually sat down beside Ranma. "What sort of amateurs are they," Ranma spat out in antipathy as he watched the comedy of errors develop in the clearing. "First the blond almost gets turned to the very side she's supposed to be fighting and then the others expose their presence to the very people they're supposed to ambush. I can't believe we're wasting our time like this. Unless they start to pull out some interesting techniques I can learn and adapt, I'm leaving."

"Come on Ranma, if this turns out like I think it will then this will turn into one heck of a show, amateurs or not. In fact I think I saw something like this a few months before Beryl attacked. It was supposed to be a political satire, I wonder if they got the speeches right, they certainly perfected the uniform." Serenity's laughter echoed across the clearing, unheard by any but the holder of the Ginzuishou.

Ranma just returned his gaze to the fight, it was rare that Serenity got to enjoy some of the cultures from when she was queen. It seemed strange that someone would have resurrected such an old play though, but it certainly made more sense than a deadly confrontation. Any attempt to add comedy to such a confrontation would result in a quick loss if either side were deadly serious. Still that meant that there was a third party pulling the strings, a dangerous possibility.

"Ahhhh, nice control I can use that." Ranma's interest was once again ignited as the fight started. "The warp hole will make travel a lot more efficient and that cloth technique suddenly redeemed this evening. I wonder when the others are going to make a move though - their team mate is in a little trouble unless they jump in soon." Ranma's interest was further perked at the various techniques they used in their mock fight.

"You're too predictable Ranma," Serenity commented as he started playing with the cloth sash on his waste. "Still the shows just started," she said as she watched the remaining group as they started to squabble amongst themselves, further confirming to her that this whole fight had to be staged.

"Ahhhh, that's what we're here for," Serenity exclaimed as the red-skirted girl held up a moon shaped sceptre with a crystal imbedded into it. "That's what's giving off the signal, but how did a group of school girls get a hold of such a strong artefact. There is more going on here than we know; it might not be as staged as I originally thought. If that's the case these girls are playing a very dangerous game."

Serenity started to get a little concerned, a recreated play with clearly identifiable signals identifying Beryl and moon kingdom could not have been a coincidence, such a strong artefact should not have been in a position to be found by a group of school girls either. The transformation pens were quite common in her time and easily explained but something like the crystal was not something left lying around.

"So, just let me know when the real fight starts." Ranma continued to play with his cloth belt and mumbling about Ki strengthening right up till the point when the other four girls jumped into the centre of the park to confront the two enemy fighters. He was not here for fun but training. A good fight always interested him and sometimes seeing what not to do was just as important as seeing good strategy in action.

Serenity clapped in delight as the girls all posed as if for a camera, "justice and peace, just like I remembered. I wonder who knew enough of the moon kingdom to recreate such a show in this age? Only nobles could have afforded to see it, such a prestigious group was in high demand." It was a rhetorical question, Ranma, martial artist and bearer of the Ginzuishou was much more interested in the possibility of picking up some new techniques than trying to determine how these relics survived since the fall. They were beneath his notice and no doubt would be until they bit him in the ass, but then they would provide him with an interesting diversion.

"Nice uses of elemental attacks, even if they're weak I could probably do something with them and that shielding technique will come in handy," Ranma grinned trying to absorb as much as he could of how the techniques were executed, ignoring Serenity in favour of learning new techniques. 'The stances and attack names had to go but otherwise…' "They may be weak Serenity but they do have some pretty cool moves which can be adapted. I'll have to try that multiplier technique some time and that water attack and that…"

Serenity tuned out her ward, it seemed all he was interested in was getting stronger. She had played no small part in that, constantly urging him onto greater and greater heights and even helping in his training. Her life was over and it was now his time, his era. An era that she would make sure was not cut short through lack of strength like her own had been.

With the emergence of Beryl and these self styled Warriors of Justice maybe it was time for her to share a few more of her secrets and legacy, he had already claimed the palace as his own but that was the least of her secrets. Strength alone would not be enough if more of the moon kingdoms secrets and enemies started appearing. He would need diplomacy and tact to gather the forces together outside of the notice of the current governments of earth.

Even as Beryl's general fled and her foot soldier was banished back to the pocket dimension Serenity had originally confined Beryl to, Ranma continued to go over the techniques he had seen. If his past actions were any indication he would continue to try and duplicate them and he wouldn't be distracted by anything short of an attempt on his life until he succeeded.

Ranma and Serenity straightened almost in concert, "What is that?"

"Lets investigate Ranma, the fight is over anyway. It appears to be a piece of old moon technology and it can't be a coincidence. Not after that crystal that the girls sported around like a piece of jewellery."

"Come on Serenity, you should have learnt by now not to say that around me. Hopefully it's an alien invasion I've needed a good training exercise for a while and that room you allocated in the palace is starting to get a little old. Some strong aliens – enough to give me a challenge, Beryl's minions don't look like much and I have no reason to reveal my presence to the weak school girls."

"Bite your tongue Ranma," she said as Ranma slapped Genma awake.

"Father I have something I have to do, I'll see you later."

"But Son," Genma started groggily regaining consciousness after being beaten too a pulp by his son.

"We may be staying here for a while," Ranma cut him off.

"Yes son," he said stumbling away, still a little weak from his sparring session with his son. By the time he got to Tendo's however he knew that he would have recovered most of his strength.

Ranma watched Genma leave before smirking at Serenity and creating a black warp hole and winking, revelling in his own superiority. "One down."

He stepped in and they both disappeared.

* * *

As soon as he stepped out of the black hole and onto the white marble floor in the palace's throne room a holographic display appeared. "Your right, it appears to be a colony ship. The design appears to be similar to the ones being developed in the period leading up to Beryl's attack. You said they were all destroyed so how did this one survive and why is it zeroing in on the palace," Ramma said continuing to tap on the holographic display. Occasionally little pieces of information would appear awaiting Ranma's notice before fading.

"It appears to be in trouble and the ports aren't working since I never thought they would be needed and they couldn't possibly be of any help in training, I'll have to bring it in manually. The computer hasn't got time to initiate any sort of repairs before the ship smashes into the palace anyway."

'Who knew a ship would need to be docked after so long, I certainly never expected to see a ship until I got around to building them based of some new designs. I just hope Serenity doesn't find out my secret until I'm ready' Ranma thought secretly, it was a secret he had kept from Serenity and would continue to keep until the time was right. Keeping secrets from Serenity was a challenge but he loved challenges.

Serenity listened as Ranma talked to himself as much as he talked to her. It amused and disappointed her when Ranma immediately begun upgrading the castles training functions, making full use of all the research that the computers had come up with over the last millennia to maximise his strength and skill in the arts. She would have loved to see him buy or mine some resources to upgrade the other palace facilities or perhaps begin to rebuild the royal defence fleet, she knew that with the new technologies then any weaponry that they could build would be truly awesome.

Still, over the years Ranma had shown little or no interest or ability in the area's needed to be able to start that amount of rebuilding. Everything seemed to revolve around his own strength, at the expense of everything else. Though she had to admit, before now there hadn't been any real need, so she hadn't really pushed him in that area.

Not that the palace was in too bad a shape, Beryl had not managed to destroy much of it before she had been banished to the Negaverse. She had been too quick to gloat once she had cleared a path to the throne room. The supercomputers had thus been running on the problems that they had been set to and had come up with some true gems over the millenniums.

After a decade regions the palace was almost in a better working order than it had been with a whole troop of servants running it. It helped that it was uninhabited so once something was repaired Ranma could start on another section of the palace he needed.

'This would have been a lot easier in a few months after I get that artificial intelligence working.' He grumbled to himself, making sure that Serenity would not be able to hear. "Would you check that the medical wing is working properly?" Ranma asked before warping outside the walls of the palace in preparation to dock the ship himself.

'Another area he has neglected since he had never needed any major treatment himself and he never brought any guest to the place' Serenity thought sadly as she moved to the medical wing, still perhaps it was for the best the moon palace was a secret that was not safely divulged in this day and age.

The colony ship was coming in fast without much control but she knew that Ranma's training combined with the power of the crystal would allow him to achieve the normally impossible task of safely docking the ship in a non-functioning dock if only barely. In a zero-G environment it wouldn't weigh anything but the momentum of the speeding mass was more than deadly enough even for someone with Ranma's strength.

Serenity waited in the medical wing for Ranma, he wouldn't be long and she didn't want to distract him. Besides she would probably be needed to provide some guidance when he arrived here. The moon kingdom despite Ranma's familiarity with it was still her domain, Ranma may have the ability to react and deal with the unexpected but her foreknowledge would be invaluable in avoiding any disasters and treating the injured using instruments he was unfamiliar with.

"Serenity, we have live ones here but this one seems past it," Ranma grunted as he dumped a fit looking middle-aged woman on the sofa before offloading healthy looking sleepers from a trolley onto the other beds in the ward. It seemed strange that the whole crew had managed to get to safety but the captain had stayed out to die.

"Ranma, I have a feeling you should try to revive this one. I feel that this one is the most important of this group and preventing her death will divert possible catastrophes in the future." Ranma just looked at her for while before turning his focus to the blue skinned woman, her lips seemed beyond blue and her eyes seemed slightly bulged but surprisingly she still had a weak heartbeat, enough life that he would be able to revive her without any side effects. Whatever else he might say, this one had some inhuman endurance.

"What a bother," Ranma muttered leaning over the woman pouring as much healing energy as he dared into the woman, tapping into the crystal when he could channel no more of his own energy into the woman. Still he had learnt the hard way to listen to Serenity when she said something was important. "You know this will leave me weak until tomorrow."

Serenity snorted, "Weak to you is normal for the majority of my former soldiers Ranma."

"Meh," Ranma replied in disinterest. He was never really interested in comparing himself with the strength of others only making sure that he was the strongest he could be.

Serenity watched as the blue started fading from the woman's extremities and then from the rest of her body. She nodded approvingly at Ranma's control over the crystal's healing energies as the woman's face regained a health glow.

"Aaaaagggghhhhhhhh!" The woman cried mournfully sitting up in confusion. "Never had that reaction before," Ranma mumbled to himself starring at the woman.

* * *

Ehri stared worriedly at the screens in front of her, she had been called up to the communication operations by a junior officer. He was passing responsibility but she didn't mind, this was important she could feel it. Mars outer senses had been giving poor resolution for the last ten minutes when it had suddenly denigrated into static. They were effectively blind against attack and it wasn't uncommon for raiders to be seen this close to the moon.

"Double patrols and move all troops to battle readiness," she commanded snappishly.

"Yes ma'm," Ehri almost didn't notice the nameless officer as he saluted and moved to carry out her orders, she was too preoccupied thinking of all the possible problems that might arise from the current situation. Almost as fast as she imagined problems she mentally planned a series of actions that would neutralise the threat. It was this forethought that made her such a good officer and she took pride in it.

The mournful cry of sirens broke her concentration from the potential attack by bandits or invaders and multiple other scenarios' she had imagined. A drill was a little unexpected but nothing that would interfere with her plans too much, in fact it could just as easily aid in buffering the effects of an attack.

"A drill, at a time like. Alright you know what t…"

"Citizens of mars," the voice of their princess was broadcast planet wide "our world and our entire kingdom faces the biggest threat in our lifetime." On the rare opportunities she had had to meet the princess Ehri had never heard her sounding so grim. "An initial report suggests that our outer installations have been over run by an unknown aggressor. I call on you all to rise up and resist in the name of the moon. More than that, I call on you all to defend our home," if Mar's outer defences had been overrun so fast the threat must be dire indeed.

She had toured the defences herself along with more senior offices and to her they had looked impregnable. Constantly being upgraded, they contributed to Mar's reputation of being the planet of war. Certainly Mar's was the home to the best warriors in the kingdom supported by the best weaponry. If they had been taken down so easily it was easy to see why her princess sounded so grim.

A respectful silence followed the broadcast before Ehri decided that they could not afford to waste a minute more "If the princess found it necessary to broadcast such a message planet wide then we can't afford waste another minute. I want updates every five minutes!" She shouted as raced for the barracks, it was there that she would be able to do what she was trained to do – lead troops in the defence of her homeland in the name of princess Serenity and her princess."

Running across the open yard that stood between the communication ops and the barracks Ehri couldn't help but grip her side arm in an attempt to stifle the worried churning in her stomach. No one had shut off the sirens and probably wouldn't until the attackers had been eliminated. She didn't doubt they would eventually triumph- couldn't doubt.

"An officer, now heres a prize boys," drawled a gravely voice from in front her.

Ehri blinked as she was charged from the direction of the barracks by some foreign troops. She just stood in confusion as Beryl's motif flashed against the starry night, they had been allied for years surely Beryl would not stage something like this.

"Lets do her quick, these damn Martians just won't die and we're on a time limit you know." The thugs rough sounding words enraged her, snapping her out of her temporary stupor and prompting her to action.

Ehri scowled in consternation but then smirked at the soldiers comment with pride. Her people would not go down without a fight, she had trained them personally and she would lead them once she had put down the threat in front of her, allies or not. Pulling her side arm she shot three before engaging the other two in close combat.

The men's heavyset unaugmented bodies could not keep up with her hours of drilling in the Martian arts. The fact that she had recently become an active part in the experimental nannite program meant that Beryl's soldiers went down even faster. Not even looking at the smoking bodies of the five enemies behind her she continued her sprint to the Barracks.

"Princess," Ehri gasped out. Before her, a numerically superior enemy was massacring her troops. The black uniform of Beryl mingled with the red of Mars making their technological superiority redundant. Overhead jets and gun platforms roared futilely amid the background of the mournful sirens, at that moment she feared that those sirens would over see the fall of Mars, something that not even the moon princess had been able to do before they had joined forces in peace.

"To me!" She cried as she jumped into the melee immediately feeling the weight of the overwhelming odds facing her. "To me!" the press of bodies and the immediacy of the mortal combat didn't allow her time for seeds of doubt to grow and affect her combat potential, she just continued to lash out, killing anyone in a black uniform and bearing the traitorous queens motif.

"Its good to see you boss, thought you weren't gunna make it to the party," grunted Eijhi as he frantically warded off the enemies attempts to disembowel him, it was to close to use their superior arms so instead they had to fall back on their traditional training. The Martian arts were effective but not effective enough against such a large number.

"Report," she snapped. Eijhi was her right hand man and under normal circumstances she would enjoy bantering with him but these…

Even as she noted more of her squad joining her Eijhi started his report, "we were completely surprised. The first warning we got was Beryl's damn dogs smashing down our walls. We are making them bleed but its not looking good, someone managed to trip the siren and the Princess got a broadcast off b…"

Ehri stared at Eijhi's broken body abstractly almost unconsciously twisting the head off the soldier responsible. "Lets join the princess people," she instructed the mostly half dressed and bloody troop around her. The princess was making short work of the black flood that tried to crush her but all it took was a lucky hit and she would be engulfed.

"Fumhi lets get moving!" the noise of the sirens, the jets and the screaming of dying men and women all made communication almost impossible but it seemed that they understood her intention as she slowly made her way to the red rock amidst a sea of black, a rock that threatened to go under at any moment.

"Princess!" she cried out as her troop moved in an attempt to give her room. Ehri noticed that only half of their original number remained fighting but turned her focus on the princess. She at least would have an out to such a hopeless situation.

"Ehri, we have fallen. I want you to escape on the colony ship that we have been building. Take as many citizens as you can manage and take Bokkhai if he's still alive. He will serve you well, now go while there is more fighting than dying to be done!" Although it wrenched her heart at the thought of her home falling so easily, so quickly there was nothing she could do but obey her princess, it was what she had been born for.

Fighting her way out of the melee the princess of mars surrounded by her valiant troop burned in her mind, even with her eyes closed she could see them fighting to their last breathe and their death screams cut through her hands as she tried to block them from her ears.

"Aaaaagggghhhhhh!" She screamed mournfully sitting up in confusion. It seemed that she was in a medical facility of some kind not a battlefield, what the hell was going on and who was the pigtailed youth standing over her?

* * *

Genma banged on the doors of the dojo, his imposing figure had regained much of its energy from the sparing session with his son. His handkerchief and Gi was still stained with blood but his son had gone easy on him. There were times he had decided to test Genma's skill by going hard, it took him weeks to heal from those sessions.

He was far worse than the master ever was where training was concerned, fairer but far more brutal. 'How had his son become so powerful' he wondered. "Genma!" A middle-aged man with a moustache burst from the Dojo flanked by two young girls. "It's been too long," he cried launching himself at his old friend. "Tell me where is your son and why have you been taking training so seriously." Suon stared worriedly at the bloodstains that adorned his Gi, some older than others.

"Tendo, that is something we have to discuss." He said seriously, following Tendo into the house and sitting at the table while a third young girl poured some tea. "I am a changed man, my son has changed me for the better. I would love to stay here but I cannot endorse the engagement that we made all those years ago." His son would not accept such foolish behaviour, besides brute force was not a path he ever liked taking with his son, it was far too painful. More subtle measures had far more chances of success besides.

Taking a sip from his tea from where he had been sat before Suon's daughters he began to explain before he was interrupted, "I have been training my son for ten years now. But I wasn't the only one to train him over that period; he was so dedicated that he often sought out other teachers to teach him techniques and styles that I knew nothing about. It filled me with such pride that no mater what teacher he had visited or what training I put him through he returned to me, often much stronger than he had left and so I begun to work harder trying to be worthy of such devotion. Often I learnt as much from him, as he from me, Ranma truly is the heir that we hoped for. Even as Ranma exceeded my expectations I have tried to exceed his and it is my decision as his father that this engagement is not in his best interests."

"Are you saying my little girls aren't good enough," Suon growled dangerously. His agreement with Genma had been all he had thought about since his wife died, to have his daughters rejected so easily did not sit well.

"Not at all," Genma sighed tiredly, finishing his tea with a final gulp. "They all look like fine daughters but ultimately it needs to be Ranma's decision. That is why I still hope that you will accept us into your home and not mention the engagement again." It was Genma's hope that a prolonged stay would do more for a relationship than any pressure he could apply.

"Surely as his father you…" Suon blustered trying to convince his friend that the engagement was still salvageable. Genma noticed that the girls expressions were carefully blanketed while he discussed the engagement with his old training partner. Likely he had not thought to tell them about the agreement between their families until this morning.

"No old friend, besides who do you think knocked be about so badly."

"You mean…."

Genma just nodded as both men shuddered, Suons daughters watched the exchange with interested but though the youngest always looked ready to interrupt she never did.

A/N – If you have the American version of SM it is based on ep 38, the Japanese – ep 45.


	3. The Martians Have Landed

An Empire Reborn

Ch3: The Martians Have Landed

Setsuna grasped her garnet rod, the symbol of her guardianship tightly as she stared into the time gates. She had protected them against intrusion for millennia and in all that time never had a hint that she was anything but alone in her duty. Oh there was the vague hint that the previous guardian had an heir lost in time but she had found no trace of him and she had looked very carefully.

No she was certain that she was the last of the great protectors whose duty it was to protect important Silver Millennium technology. It seemed incredible that if she wasn't alone in her duty, any evidence or trace hadn't surfaced over the thousands of years she had been here. As such she felt that she retained the moral authority as last living member of one of the greatest kingdoms ever raised. Setsuna conveniently overlooked the fact that she had only been recruited after the moon kingdom had fallen and only because the time gates were partially sentient and needed a guardian.

As the last of her era and guardian to the time gates, Setsuna felt that it was her prerogative to rebuild a kingdom utilising all of the knowledge that had been lost to the generations since the fall of the moon kingdom and rebuild all of the technological wonders that the moon kingdom had been famous for to ease the lives of the citizens of her new kingdom, with herself at its heart she would hold the power to shape the course of human history. With fewer restrictions than she currently operated under now.

So many technologies and comforts had been lost that it was inconceivable that even if people found out what her plans were, there wouldn't be many objections to her goal for spatial and temporal domination. Besides, even if large numbers of people did object to her plans she held more than enough power to make sure that their objections did not make any significant impact. Setsuna didn't even blink at the thoughts of erasing entire countries, which might object to her new empire. It was for the good of the future after all.

It was disconcerting then to sense a large Silver Millennium signal approaching the solar system at such a rate. For thousands of years she had been the power in this system, her actions unrestricted by anyone and her goals uninterrupted, as long as she protected the gates from intrusion she could do as she pleased. That power had largely been as a result of being the last person alive with knowledge and access to moon kingdom magic and tech.

With her plans so close to fruition after thousands of years of planning, experimentation and research it was frightening to think that it could all unravel now through the unfortunate return of some old junk. Was it a coincidence, a natural occurrence as the gravitational orbit of the moon kingdom tech once again found its way to the solar system or was it by design?

Becoming the guardian to the time gates all those years ago had changed the direction of her life in a good way, sure she had to risk her life sometimes to ward of an intruder bent on salvaging some powerful technology from a long since fallen kingdom and the temptation to look into the future could only mean her death. But apart from that, the role of guardian had given her god like powers among a technological and spiritually backward society with no apparent cost to herself. She was free to fulfil any plans she desired; nothing could be allowed to upset those plans or her superiority.

Still with the rate the moon kingdom relic was approaching and the trajectory it was travelling then whatever the object was it would most likely to crash into the moon with enough force that the only evidence that it ever existed would be another crater on the pocked surface of the moon. Humanity had achieved little more than a few pitiful visits to their closest neighbour since their demise at Beryl's hands, her plans for conquest would be long since accomplished before any debris was discovered.

Setsuna waited tight fisted as the signal passed Pluto barely slowing down and sped towards the earth. As it passed Saturn it slowed extraordinarily, approaching the moon at a more sedate pace demonstrating that it was far more than a relic, but even as she prepared to travel to where it would crash into the moon its signal disappeared.

Setsuna raised her eyebrows in surprise expecting the signal to start up again, surely whatever technology it contained was hardier than that. Complete destruction was the only explanation as to the signals disappearance, her connection with such an important piece of moon kingdom technology allowed her to sense the presence of even broken artefacts from that time and at the pace it had slowed down to it was hard to believe that even an uncontrolled landing would destroy the signal.

She just nodded in understanding after a minute of thought. She had heard rumours that some of Queen Serenities more close guarded relics would self-destruct to prevent themselves from being misused or mishandled. Often the large destruction and loss of life caused by such self-destruction was relatively small when compared to the damage that could have been caused by potential misuse. It still frustrated her to know that even with her knowledge she could not prevent the destruction of artefacts that could only aid her cause.

Dismissing the sudden appearance of stray technology as an aberration she once again focussed on the progress of the people who would lead her new kingdom under her guidance. They had grown up almost in the blink of an eye and before she knew it they were of an age when she would have had to act. It was fortunate that Queen Beryl had started to stir from her prison around that time, any earlier and her chosen charges would have been too young to deal with her and any later then the problem she would have generated for training purposes would have combined with Beryl to overwhelm her growing charges. She had to keep her interferences to a minimum for some time to come, other wise she risked upsetting her carefully crafted plans.

What made Beryl such an excellent start for her rulers in training was her relative weakness. In her time Beryl was reported to have been a powerful Queen, certainly she had enough power to topple the moon kingdom at its peak. In this age however she wasn't proving very effective against a group of school girls with some fairly minor power-ups. It made her wonder what had happened at the end of the moon kingdom all over again. Was it Serenity who held the power to obliterate Beryl even at the cost of her kingdom? It just made her thankful that Serenity wasn't alive to oppose her plans today.

So surprised at the suddenness in which she was required to act that she had enhanced a pair of cats to become her mouth piece and keys to the power the new kingdom would command. "Cats," Setsuna sniffed in distain with a hint of nausea "who knew they would be so effective." The pair of cats had quickly gained the trust of the girls in their role as advisors and would remain their first point of call in the event of any problem for some time. Once they out grew the cat stage, she hoped that she would be in a place to take up some of the advisory slack, remaining in a position to manipulate events in her favour.

It had been too easy to manipulate events so far but the future was far from certain. More time would be needed to cement the future she envisaged, so some care still needed to be taken. The girls she had chosen to grant powers too and lead the people into a new age of technological and spiritual greatness with her at its helm needed to become stronger even with the recreated Ginzuishou boosting the power that they held.

It had taken her a thousand years to gather that much power together, but the power of the user was still a limiting factor in its use. To truly use the crystal to its potential, the girl she chose to employ the crystal needed to mature and grow into her powers a great deal. Even then she had frequently wondered what had become of the real Ginzuishou and what else it may have been capable of.

She had to be meticulous and careful in her planning because if even one of her warriors died then she would have to wait at least another generation to start again. Not even she had the power to raise the dead. Even worse if the Ginzuishou fell into the hands of Beryl she would have a fight on her hands that she could ill afford if her plans were to be realised any time soon.

With the power she had invested into the crystal, Beryl could regain much of her old strength leading to a dangerous power struggle. Still until the so called 'inners' gained a little more power she could not go forward with her plans much more than she already had. It was strange to think that she required a little more patience at her age, even as she considered the future, the fate of the moon kingdom technology, which had so suddenly burst into the system, had already been forgotten.

* * *

Ehri blinked in confusion at her surroundings, the white walls of the medical wing and the pigtailed youth standing before her almost seemed a surreal background to the images of war that flashed through her head and the sounds of dying men and women that echoed in her ears. The conflict of her senses added to her disorientation as she steadied herself on the padded lounge. She was so sure she had died in the colony ship when she had lost consciousness still minutes away from the location of the old moon palace space docks that it took her some time to gather her thoughts after she was suddenly awakened clearly alive.

"My King!" Ehri immediately shook off her disorientation as she recognised the shimmer surrounding the young boy standing before her. It was a shimmer that every moon kingdom citizen had come to associate with possession of the Ginzuishou. Only the current rulers of the moon kingdom ever had that distinctive shimmer. It was a shimmer that demonstrated the presence of great power and since the Ginzuishou could only ever be given willingly it represented the rightful heir to the throne.

"Lieutenant Ehri of the Martian contingent reporting Majesty," she announced attempting to stand to attention only to by pushed back to the bed as she tried not to think of the embarrassment of having to be rescued by one of the royal family. She was still a little weak from finally succumbing to lack of oxygen a few minutes out from the moon.

"Lieutenant, if you could just call me Ranma. It makes me uncomfortable to be called king, so much has fallen into disrepair I can hardly be accounted king of anything but the palace you stand in." Ranma allowed his voice to relax into a soft and gentle tone, suitable to the wise image of a king. It was a mask, but a necessary one in this situation.

"As you might have guessed, and I doubt the truth would have been hidden from someone of your rank anyway, there isn't much left of the moon kingdom and millennia has passed since Beryl attacked. Although I am trying to restore as much as I can it is a big job even for someone as… great as me. I am but one man," Ranma smirked humorously gesturing for her to relax on the bed she had tried to jumped from, finding a crate himself to sit on he gave the impression he was trying to follow two conversations at once but still nether the less very much in control of the situation.

"Please lieutenant, explain these people. Who are they? Where did they come from and what do they know?" Ranma studied her face before concluding, "you at least don't seem surprised that there is so little left of what you once knew. I daresay they will be devastated. How did you find yourself propelled so far into the future?"

"King Ranma, when Beryl struck the moon kingdom our princess ordered me to gather as many refugees as possible and escape in the partly completed colony ship we had been developing. I struggled to get as many as I did, it was a massacre."

Ehri's voice sounded tired as she continued, "many were dragged from the bodies of their dead family members. I don't think that they yet realise that that attack brought civilization as they knew it to an end or that relativity accelerated them far into the future. I could guess the consequences of escaping near the speed of light and they have been confirmed by an un-destroyed automated military installation on mars."

"What is life like out there my king, how bad is it?" Ehri asked brokenly, forgeting as she once again relived the traumatic events leading to her flight from mars that her ruler had asked to be addressed as Ranma. He didn't reprimand her as she had expected just calmly considered her question with a kindly and regal expression on his face before answering.

"I will not lie to you Ehri, life is restricted to earth and you will find it far more primitive…weaker than you are used to. The destruction was almost as complete on Beryl's side as it was on ours, little remained after that day and what did was forgotten and eroded by time." Ranma smiled sympathetically but his shoulders showed a sense of purpose.

"I want to offer you a choice though, for sixteen years I have been hearing of the wonders of the moon kingdom and its downfall. In those years I have strived to become the strongest I could, vowing that I would never lose what I held dear because I was too weak to hold it. You might have noticed that I have been slowly refitting the moon palace and I could always use the help of someone I can trust."

"The moon palace is the key to rebuilding what we have lost to invasion and time, once it has been rebuilt I will need someone to help protect it and train a military to protect civilians once I start expanding beyond these walls. There is plenty of room and work for the refugees, wonders that have lain hidden for thousands of years. You could all make a life here and who knows what bright future may be in store for all of us." His offer was persuasive but she had already decided she would dedicate her life to the ruler of the moon kingdom if one survived.

"My king," Ehri started quickly rephrasing at his raised eyebrow and amused smirk, "Ranma. I have lost everything and while I would heartily join in any endeavour you perceive as necessary and right, it has been thousands of years since I have eaten or slept. Unconsciousness didn't seem to help my body recover from my flight," maybe it was her fatigue or the way he sat and engaged her but she found herself being more candid with him than she would have a royal back in her own time and certainly he didn't rebuke her for her breaking of protocol. She felt comfortable in his presence even though he out ranked her and held a far greater power. She felt safe and couldn't help thinking about the future.

"You must be hungry then, the others will be sleeping for some time. Come let me show you what it's like in the world beyond."

* * *

Genma studied the Go board intensely, so far he had captured most of Tendo's pieces and he was interested to see what Tendo would do next. Suon wasn't playing as well as he remembered his old friend used to or was capable of and he wondered what was wrong. Surely his friend hadn't forgotten how to play, the challenge of go was one they had both enjoyed immensely during their time together.

"Look Genma, aliens have invaded and are attacking your son!" Suon shouted pointing wildly.

"Ranma will most likely wipe the floor with them and force them to return to where they came from," Genma replied unconcerned for his sons welfare, confident that his son could look after himself he did not move his gaze from the board. While he didn't know the extent of his sons strength he was sure nothing as minor as an alien invasion would slow him down.

"The old master is back Genma what do we do," Suons voice rang out in false panic as he gestured in the other direction. Genma grunted in amusement, his old master wouldn't be a problem now. Training with his son had erased his fear of Happosai long ago.

"Ranma will deal with him when he's finished with the aliens Tendo, now hurry up and make your move."

Genma ignored Tendo's inaudible mumbling as he watched his old training partner make his move.

"What's wrong with you Tendo, you're playing horribly today?" The move he had made had just about given him the game, he wasn't sure what was wrong with his old friend but he would try to find out.

Suon gaped at him for a moment before turning to his youngest daughter who had just appeared from the dojo. "You've met my youngest daughter Akane, she has been training all her life in the Tendo School. Her skill is pretty impressive for her age, she has already won several competitions. Would you care to judge her skill for yourself and judge the worth of the Tendo side of Anything Goes?" Tendo's enthusiasm for his youngest daughters accomplishments drowned out the thoughts of his poor showing in Go.

Before he could politely refuse the invitation Akane had caught onto the idea and seemed unable to let it go. "Master Saotome, please spar with me. I was going to ask you once I had warmed up anyway." Genma could already tell that the girl was extremely weak and lacked any real fighting experience, he was afraid he would insult both her and Tendo if her sparred with her. Training a few hours a day and competing in a few tournaments would hardly compete with the training he and his boy had undergone. He would have to handle this situation delicately if he was to avoid insulting his guest.

Ranma he knew wouldn't care about such things and would just proceed to beat her into the ground. Perhaps it was better to get the sparring out of the way before Ranma arrived from wherever he had disappeared to this time after all. It just wouldn't do to have Tendo's heir spar his own, the match would not be a fair fight or a fair judgement of Akane's skills. He would completely overmatch her.

Genma sighed at the inevitability of the sparring session and reluctantly agreed. He had become used to sparring and training with Ranma, not having to pull his punches or restrict his techniques. This girl's skill was so low he was afraid he might hurt her by not slowing down or pulling his punches enough.

"I am undefeated in Nerima you know, it will be good to show another practitioner of our school what I can do. Don't go easy on me just because I'm a girl," Akane growled out as she faced him across the dojo floor. Her Gi already clung to her bulky frame after warming up and her red face promised to get redder. No doubt from exhaustion and frustration.

"Girl, I will go easy on you because of your skill level and not because of your gender. Attack me and don't hold back!" Genma sighed tiredly assuming a defensive stance. Akane charged at him swinging her arm for a low palm strike, anticipating a quick Ki attack in an attempt to end the fight quickly and show her superiority he wasn't prepared for such a direct attack. Still he was a master of his school and anyone who sparred regularly with his son could have easily adapted to such a weak attack.

Akane attacked him furiously with basic to middling moves at a pace that he could honestly say Ranma could have dodged at ten. Matching pace he blocked the attacks as they came in, the high kick with his forearm the low with the outside of his shin.

Genma watched as her attacks started flagging, surely she would have brought out higher-level attacks before this. Where were her Ki attacks, her special techniques? This may only be a sparring session but there were still winners and losers in sparring and you always strove to win. Had Suon really neglected the training of his heir so much?

"Break," he announced steeping back from the exhausted girl. "Is that all you've got, all you know of our school, where's the techniques that differentiates the Tendo from the Saotome? If this is all you've got I'm going to go back to my game with your father." Unspoken was that her skill was far below what he would consider a challenge worth his time a small insult to her school he hoped would anger her enough for him to see some real techniques.

"Not at all, I'm about to get serious and I will show you what I can DO!" Genma raised his eyebrows in a clearly disbelieving look as Akane seemed to work herself into frenzy, surely she didn't expect to match a master of their school. "Take this," she shouted increasing the strength behind her blows. Genma just shook his head as he continued to block blows that could shatter the strongest wood, sure she was strong for her age but by boosting her strength through her rage she lost focus and technique. That was a mistake against an opponent that couldn't be overwhelmed so easily.

Besides if she was exhausted before, once she lost that adrenaline boost there was no way she would even be able to think about continuing the fight. "Maybe, maybe," she panted after collapsing to the floor at his feet "maybe I should have challenged Ranma instead. I would have had no problem beating a boy." She was no doubt reasonably assuming that her defeat was to do with challenging a master and not because of her lack of skill. She was wrong of course.

"Akane," he growled out dangerously "don't even think about challenging Ranma, someone of your level would most likely be killed by his slowest and weakest attacks."

"Who's the weak girl and why'd ya work her over pops?" Ranma's amused voice echoed throughout the dojo clearly enraging Akane from where she lay exhausted.

Genma whirled to face Ranma and his companion, ignoring the woman standing at his side with military perfection he concentrated on his son. "My old training partner's youngest daughter, I was just trying to persuade her not to challenger you." Genma spoke clearly staring meaningfully at his son hoping he got the hint. It wouldn't be a good idea to beat this girl to the brink of death in her own dojo.

"I don't think," he shouldered the larger man out of the way snatching a 10kg barbel out of the air, "you were very successful."

"Son, she is exhausted." He replied tiredly knowing what would inevitably follow.

"I am undefeated in Nerima, I will show you what a weak girl can do. No boy will defeat me in my own dojo." Genma shook his head tiredly and stepped aside, not for the first time his son would finish what someone else started.

"Son," Genma tried reasoning with his son. A dead daughter would get them driven out of Tokyo not to mention the damage it would do to his friendship with Tendo.

"Relax, it'd be to much of a hassle breaking her now. Ehri perhaps you can deal with her, your skill could use improving but for now this nuisance shouldn't prove any problem." Genma turned to the young woman beside Ranma and once again wondered what she was doing with her son. She didn't move like she was a master of her art but her son wouldn't be wasting his time with her unless she could teach him something.

"Of course Ranma," she snapped out crisply her right hand itching to salute. Akane stood in a defensive stance warily as the woman approached her. The way Ranma had instantly determined that her skill was so much below this woman's level made her a little weary, but how could he judge so quickly.

"To easy," Ehri murmured as she overwhelmed the exhausted girls defences backhanding her into a wall looking to Ranma for approval. Ranma just smiled at the efficiency of her attack. While Genma just started at the unorthodox style, now where had he seen that move used before?

* * *

"What is going on, oh my baby?" Ranma watched as an older man raced through the dojo doors quickly checking on the young girl. After satisfying himself that the young girl was largely unhurt he turned on Genma.

"Genma who are these people and why are they attacking my daughter?" His head suddenly ballooned taking on the shape of a demon and emitting an aura of fear as he faced them, "why did you hurt my daughter?"

"Suon Tendo, your daughter attacked me. You're lucky she wasn't hurt worse than she is, you can thank Ehri for that." He allowed some of his power flash into his eyes as he stared at the older man. He wanted to make it perfectly clear that attacking him was a very bad idea.

"Tendo," Genma caught his attention tiredly as his demon head failed to impress the young boy "this is my son Ranma, my heir. Your daughter will be fine, a little sore when she awakens but fine. Now what's for lunch, I'm starving."

"Ahh yes lunch, Kasumi is just serving it up. You'll like Kasumi Ranma and make sure you meet Nabiki. I'm sure you'll make a great..er…friends." Tendo suddenly become overly friendly as he led Ranma to the table for the meal Kasumi had cooked. The strange woman that had followed Ranma was largely ignored as she shadowed Ranma, eyes alert for another unexpected attack.

Unsure what was going on he just ignored his father's friend's antics instead he followed his nose to the table. If that food tasted as good as it smelt then Ehri would have herself a fine introduction to earth.

A/N – Thanks for some initial reviews Teal Thanatos

- Next chapter more Beryl, Pluto, Scouts and nation building.


	4. To March into the Future

An Empire Reborn

Ch4: To March into the Future

"So Ranma are you as good as they say you are?" Nabiki's voice seemed to break the atmosphere at the table as Ranma finished off his third serving. Kasumi's cooking was as good as old man Tendo had claimed. He would enjoy staying here while he was away from the palace. Too busy thinking about how he would deal with the unexpected arrival of the refugees from Mars, Ranma ignored the attempts at conversation by the Tendo's two daughters. Akane was still unconscious in the Dojo.

Rather than answering Nabiki's question he snatched a sliver of beef from her plate and offered it to Ehri. He was better than they said he was, only Serenity knew his real strength in the art and she wasn't in the position to tell anybody even if she wanted to. If you factored in the strength that he controlled from the moon crystal he could probably take on America and win if he was lucky.

That was beside the point though, he would never take on a country without substantial backup and resources which he lacked at the moment. If he could persuade the Martians to join him he could start building the resources he needed though. Even if he didn't use them for attacking and conquering he would need them for rebuilding the shattered moon kingdom and he had a feeling that they would be only too glad to participate on any future attacks on earth..

"Quite an impression you made today Ranma," commented Serenity wryly as Nabiki glanced down at her bowl annoyed that Ranma had disregarded her question and wondering when she had nibbled at her dish. "Still I suppose I have to be grateful that you restrained yourself in the dojo earlier." Serenity was obviously referring to his previous encounters with challenges. 'If they felt they were strong enough to challenge him then they were strong enough to survive a beating,' he thought casually. He hadn't killed anyone yet so he wasn't too worried.

"You're rubbing off on me Serenity, besides with those survivors from Mars I'm going to have to take on more responsibility and speed up those repairs to the moon palace." Only Serenity would have noticed him mouthing the words around his food, he had long since developed ways of communicating with her in the presence of others. She was right though, usually he would have thrashed the insolently weak challenger. It was a practice that had caused as many problems as it had solved but with the new Martian arrivals he had bigger concerns.

"About those survivors, am I correct in assuming that you plan to try and rebuild the moon kingdom. It is now more than possible with the Martian refugees as a power base. Ehri did a surprisingly good job at selecting a variety of teachers, engineers, and artists among the survivors." If that was true then he might have to think about building his power base sooner than he had planned. Not that it mattered to him, he would just be a little busier than he normally kept himself.

Ranma just nodded as he smilingly asked Kasumi for another serving while his father and the Tendo's pressed Ehri for some answers to their questions seeing that he wasn't supplying anything but the occasional grunt. She was doing a surprisingly good job at fending them off, 'must be something to do with her military training' he thought to himself.

"I would never have dreamed that it would be possible to rebuild what Beryl took away from us much less build it better. All the mistakes I made will allow us to build a fairer society." Serenity breathed wistfully, "statesmanship is an area of your education that I neglected. That is an area that has to be remedied soon, winning over some militaristic Martians will be very different from winning over the governments of earth. A peaceful settlement with the people of earth is something that is of prime importance if we are to avoid another Beryl." Ranma grunted, another Beryl was unlikely with Earths current development, still she was right. The more resources he put into war the less he had else where, it didn't mean he had to neglect his military however.

"Then there are all the other areas of your education you have neglected in favor of your combat training. I didn't push you before since you showed little interest but if you are going to grab this opportunity with both hands then they will become necessary."

"Aren't you forgetting whoever is behind those so called warriors of peace and justice, they wont just roll over peacefully you know and I suspect that they are trying to achieve much the same goals as we are for their own reasons. I doubt the people of earth will overlook a high tech war going on in their backyards." Someone would be sure to notice no matter how discrete the conducted such a war. Ranma smirked privately at Serenity's assumption that his speech to Ehri earlier was no more than rhetoric. So sure that she was aware of what was going on – he would play along but when she found out she would be very surprised. The castle was much more prepared than she knew.

"Ranma," Ehri gasped as he chocked on a piece of rice. Something was about to happen which he had to witness, it would be a good idea for his lieutenant to be there as well. It was rude to rush of in the middle of a meal but this was too important.

"Ehri we have to go, excuse me but this can't wait." Ranma bowed to Kasumi, her cooking was some of the best he had tasted making him wonder if there were any cooks among the Martian survivors.

"This is something you must see," he whispered as they left the dojo grounds where he opened up a portal. "Let's see what Beryl and the scouts are up to," he mouthed to Serenity as he stepped through with Ehri. Only a curious Nabiki, who had quickly followed her antisocial fiancé, was a witness to his mode of transport.

* * *

Ehri followed her king's lead through the stone labyrinth he had teleported them to as she listened to the echoing sound of nearby voices. She started in surprise when he gestured urgently to her and faded from view leaving her trying to imitate his level of stealth by merging with the shadows. It was obvious he had sensed someone approaching who he wanted to hide from, she would not allow her limited skill give her king away, she thought with determination.

"Are sure this is a good idea Artimis?"

"Relax, Luna the scouts will be fine."

Ehri stared incredulously at her king when he reappeared again and gestured for her to follow. Talking cats, that was something she hadn't expected to see in this primitive time and why the hell where they named after Queen Serenities closest advisors. Something weird was going on, something her king wanted to see and perhaps figure out for herself. She would keep her eyes and ears open in an attempt to understand what he was showing her as she continued to follow his stealthy approach to the cavern before them. Ehri was sure he would explain the situation to her when there was time if she didn't understand.

"Kunzite!" she hissed with anger before Ranma silenced her. What was going on here and who were the colorfully dressed schoolgirls facing the evil terran general? "What is going on here?" she mouthed to Ranma, as she listened to Kunzite demand the Silver millennium crystal from the pony tailed leader. She checked in confusion to see that Ranma still glowed confirming that he held possession of the Ginzuishou, so what was that powerful gem the girl had in her possession and why was Beryl's general so sure it was the Ginzuishou? It was obvious that Beryl wanted its power but that didn't explain his confusion over the artifacts identity.

"Just watch," he mouthed back.

Ehri followed Ranma's lead as he sat down to watch the conflict, it seemed her king was enjoying this conflict more than he let on. Even the lightening blast, which barely missed the enterence to the cavern they sat in didn't move the sardonic grin he held. Kunzite's counter attack more than demonstrated the differing power levels by throwing all five of the girls back against the stonewalls and making a grab for the crystal. Why was her king watching such a one-sided fight and not interfering, it was clear who was in the wrong here. Beryl and her generals, how could Ranma not run in and destroy one who took part in the downfall of his kingdom? Obviously she was missing a piece of the puzzle.

"Wha…" she gaped in amazement. Just as Kunzite grabbed for the crystal which was attached to the crescent moon shaped scepter it spun away letting out a powerful blast which held Kunzite and the five girls frozen in place. Only Ranma's protection prevented them from suffering the same fate. She had heard of some powerful artifacts in the queen's possession having the power to freeze an enemy in place but had never seen it. She didn't even notice sweat pooling on Ranma's brow as he maintained the shield against the crystals light.

"Now isn't that interesting," Ranma commented while he studied the statue like figures. "It seems that the crystal is being controlled by the same mysterious person who was controlling those cats." Ehri blinked in understanding as she started putting the pieces together, obviously there was a mysterious third power and her king was holding his hand, in an attempt to find out more before he deployed his own resources. 'Very strategic my king,' she thought in admiration

Ehri thought back to the cats, how had he noticed that the two cats were more than the enhanced pets she had originally suspected. Shrugging and putting it down to his connection with the Ginzuishou she drew her knife to kill Beryl's general while he was helpless.

"Don't, let's just see how this little drama plays out. There will be more than enough time for that later," Ranma said restraining her. "Meanwhile tell me what you think of this…" Ranma just gestured at the six frozen figures in the stone cavern.

"I don't understand how Beryl and her generals could have survived so long after the fall of the moon kingdom. It has been thousands of years by my calculation and I am not amused by these schoolgirls imitating and besmirching the names of such great warriors." Ehri replied after some consideration, she had survived because of a trick of time and space how could Beryl have weathered so many years?

What angered and confused her more than the return of Beryl and her generals though was these imposters with the powerful crystal. There was no mistaking its power or its origin. The only explanation she could see was someone giving the group of schoolgirls the crystal but how could anyone entrust such a powerful object into their hands and what was the extent of their knowledge about the moon kingdom. "Tactically these girls barely have a chance of winning this fight unless they work together and use the power of the crystal so why aren't you interfering - that is Kunzite out there. Beryl's general," she hissed as her king's grip tightened. Her anger and grief at what she had witnessed was almost overwhelming her military training.

"You look confused Ehri, is it that crystal?" Her king asked in an understanding tone, he knew that she thirsted to go and end the lives of the people in the stone chamber, one in revenge, the others because they mocked the dead, those she had once defended with her life.

"I have to admit my king, that the presence of two such powerful crystals worries me, all the more that the second is in the presence of some untrained girls." One of the reasons so many of the Queens powerful artifacts were been booby-trapped was for this very reason. In case someone obtained some power and attempted to carve out a kingdom with it. It was a small possibility when the queen and senshi held power, but from what I have seen in this time….There is no one with enough power to stop them.

"It is quite pitiful and slightly ironic that earths defenders have resorted to relying on power-ups and Silver Millennium artifacts isn't it." Ranma barked out with a laugh.

"When Beryl's forces broke into the moon palace to confront Serenity, she used the power of the Ginzuishou to banish Beryl and her forces to another dimension. Beryl is only now flexing her muscles and stirring from the plane she was banished to after having pillaged the moon kingdom entirely. I inherited the real Ginzuishou from the hands of Pluto herself. What you see in their possession is a clever and powerful fake but as long as they contain Beryl I see no reason for not letting them keep their pretty stone. As long as I am able to keep an eye on them, as for how they know of the moon kingdom when all trace had been erased from earth millennia ago, I can't tell you."

"What? But.."

Ranma silenced her with his hand while he pointed at the stirring scouts with the other, it seemed the fight was once again about to begin as the freeze started to loose its grip.

* * *

Pluto watched as the scouts were brushed back with the strength of Kunzite's blast and Usagi lost her grip on the moon scepter. It frustrated her that the girls she had picked out seemed to adjust to their new powers so slowly. She had carefully chosen the group of girls with the greatest potential in their generation to wield the powers of the Sailor Scouts but it seemed that they barely managed to defeat each threat that Beryl threw at them.

Now so close to escaping the prison that Serenity had imprisoned her in, Pluto could ill afford to wait any longer, she would need to speed up the bonding between Usagi and the crystal. Unfortunately as Usagi increased her mastery over the crystal, Pluto's own control over the gem would drastically diminish. Even as Usagi's power grew hers would weaken. That was one of the reasons she was going so carefully, so that other controls could be put into place.

Still it was either that or wait another generation as Kunzite demolished her warriors of peace and justice. 'Time for plan B' she muttered in disgust, if the girls she had picked had lived up to their potential plan B would have been unnecessary. Seizing control of her bond with the power held within the crystal, Pluto altered its path to avoid Kunzites grasp before using its innate power to freeze the combatants where they stood.

"If I'm going to give up control over any power, I'm going to make real sure I maintain its users loyalty," Pluto groused as she entered the girls mind. She had made sure that she had plenty of backup plans from the moment she was forced to use a couple of cats as advisors, this was one of the more simplistic of them.

After she had been caught plan free once, she had imagined the most unlikely events and had come up with plans to correct or limit their effect on her plans. Feeding the girls bursts of images and dialogue directly into their mind she shaped their thoughts and manipulated their emotions before sitting back and watching her handy work. While physically they wouldn't be going anywhere or meeting anyone, by the time the information she had fed them unraveled they would believe they had.

Setsuna smiled in satisfaction as the scouts wondered what she imagined remained of the moon palace after Beryl had trashed it before activating a prerecorded message left by Serenity the last Queen of the moon kingdom. She watched as they experienced her own reconstruction of the kingdoms fall from power as told by the last Queen and smirked as they felt great pain and sadness from her created events. Pluto's manipulation of events ensured that Serenities courage and valiant sacrifice motivated them while fueling their hate for Beryl's kind and the evil she represented.

She waited until she was confident that the group of teens she had gathered was only filled with loyalty to Usagi with no disloyalty tainting their actions. For now it would suit her plans to have their loyalty lie there, later their loyalty could be eroded and slowly transferred to her, but until she appeared there would not be much point.

"She protected us all," Minako murmured sadly.

"She sure did," Makoto muttered tearfully.

Setsuna smiled at seeing her plans go so well when Usagi unconsciously drew power from the crystal in an attempt to drive the fear from her friends and augment their attacks and defenses. Sailor moons control had jumped enormously, however if Pluto were to imbue the girl with a greater mastery over the crystal then the girls body would fail despite her potential and the amount of wards and technology she had invested into the girl.

Only time and experience would allow her to push that limit further but the girl was already more than powerful enough to handle Beryl's general and possibly even Beryl herself. Once Beryl was out of the way she could start some real planning and then the real work of empire building would begin.

Pluto's laughter from the entrance of the time gates muffled Kunzites death knell as events were transmitted through the Shanite she had recovered not long after the fall of civilization. His last words echoed through space, "I'm coming Zoicite, I will join you soon."

* * *

'What's going on?" thought Ranma in a daze. He had mostly agreed with Ehri's analysis of the situation. There was no way the girls could have possibly overpowered that general unless they used as much power as they could leach from the crystal and worked as a team. But they had, or rather their blond leader had. She had not only managed to draw heavily on the crystals power to augment her own teams but had also had enough power to spare to annihilate Kunzite.

"There is no way that girl's mastery over that crystal could have grown so much in the little time I've been following her. No way!' If the girl had a learning curve that fast then he would have a problem, one that could possibly upset his plans in the near future. 'Bah, I'll just have to work harder at building my own strength in case she ever becomes a problem.' Despite his shock he would not show any weakness before his lieutenant, he must show himself to be a strong leader to convince the Martians to join him.

"Ehri it is time we awoke the refugees, they will look to you for the right think to do. You saved them from death and brought them home, they will value your advice. I might hold the Ginzuishou but you are the one who saved their lives. I am no Serenity and cannot expect to hold their loyalty immediately. Tell them what you've seen and what my plans for the future are, the moon kingdom can be reborn better and greater than when it died, with their help. These girls are my responsibility even as Beryl is my responsibility, so please don't let such weak threats sway yours or their decision. Our priority must be rebuilding for sometime to come. What is the point of conquest if we do not have a home to come back too?"

Ranma watched Ehri nod in understanding before he creating a portal to the moon palace. Even as they appeared in the medical wing he watched as Ehri made her rounds waking up the survivors. "What do you think Serenity?" he mouthed watching as she gathered the Martians around her and ignoring the pointed stares his way.

"The Martians have always been eager to join nation building projects especially when there is the possibility for showing off their superiority in war." Serenity said as she stared at the growing crowd of people at the far end of the hall. Despite being the first to fall, they accounted for the most casualties on Beryl's side. If they had held on a little longer it is possible that the war would have ended much differently. I have no doubt that if you promise them the opportunity to regain their strength and honor they will join you."

"Not about them, what sort of technique could this puppet master have used on her slave girls to have effected such a change and how could I not have seen her use it? I've not seen anyone better at stealth than me," Ranma was silently berating himself for his oversight, he would he vowed step up his training with both the crystal and his own art.

"Ranma, these girls are people with parents and friends. What she did was forbidden, I outlawed it for the exact reason you saw. It removes free will and personal choice, with little chance of resisting its effects and since such a technique could be used at a distance, who ever used that move might not even have been on earth. Using it to its maximum potential has the possibility of creating an army of loyal and fanatical followers, think of the havoc such a skill could cause. With a few people controlling constantly battling brainwashed followers society would quickly break down and eventually collapse completely. Only a few people ever have had the power or the knowledge to do such a thing however, Beryl and I among them and that was a long time ago. Still knowing the technique doesn't protect you from it unless you had the power to use it yourself."

"Obviously the amount of people that could hold such power now would be far fewer than back then at the height of the moon kingdoms powers. Who… I want to know and you've gotta teach me that technique if for no other reason than to defend against it. I would have the power to use such a technique and you know that I would not misuse it." Ranma grinned ferally as Serenity succumbed to his arguments and agreed to teach him the technique. He would not use the technique since he knew of more reliable means too bind people too him but a technique was a technique and he would not allow its use on himself or his followers.

"My king, the people have some questions that my explanation could not satisfy." Ranma watched as Ehri approached from the crowd and prostrated herself before him.

Mindful of the atmosphere that surrounded the throne of what was still in their minds a powerful nation Ranma followed protocol. "Of course, please, ask them."

Ehri stood with her head still lowered, "what guarantees can you provide that the events that they fled from will not happen again. More, will you provide assurances that they will be able to return home when Mars has been re-terraformed?"

"Citizens of Mars," Ranma smirked inwardly as he addressed the people who were about to join him in his quest for a bigger and more powerful kingdom. Though Ehri asked the question it was the concerns of the people behind her, "I have not been idle for the last sixteen years, indeed the palace has not been idle for the last thousand years." Ranma had always thought the basic public speaking techniques Serenity had drilled him in had been a waste of time but with the arrival of the Martian citizens from the past his plans had expanded, now he played them for all he was worth.

"It is possible that the Moon kingdom has the potential to become greater than it ever was, but while the moon has been moving ever forward the earth has been traveling backward. It is inconceivable that a threat could emerge from earth, which is great enough to bring about a disaster of such a magnitude that occurred on that day. Still as you know or would have been told by now, Beryl destroyed much of the nations infrastructure."

"So while I have been rebuilding what I can alone, I have not been able to fulfill the vast potential this kingdom has, to become much greater than it was before. Citizens of Mars be assured that with your help the strength you remember will not only be rebuilt but enhanced and as soon as that happens you are welcome to move back to your homes on mars or stay here on the moon if you wish. Help me rebuild this shattered kingdom and Mars will once again be known for its military might throughout the galaxy and perhaps even the universe."

Ranma fought back an evil grin as the men and women from the past all knelt before him enamored with his vision for the future.

* * *

Genma sat over the edge of the deck gazing unblinkingly at Tendo's koi pond. The graceful leaps of the colorful Koi barely registered as he considered his son. His thoughts were increasingly on his son lately as he continued to increase in strength and knowledge. What he had told Tendo was true, his son embodied what they imagined for an heir to the Anything Goes school when they planned the engagement.

It wasn't his skill or knowledge that worried Genma though, Ranma had proven he was more than capable to take over his fathers school when Genma retired. He was worried about his sons behavior lately, he wasn't as close as he once was, he was sure his son held tightly onto secrets where there used to be none between them.

Although his son had remained just as focused on furthering his boundaries and expanding his school, Ranma had become increasingly elitist and seemingly cruel. He regularly beat challenges to an inch of infirmity and brooked little when it came too the weaknesses of others, it concerned Genma because the world was full of people that did not have the strength his son had acquired.

Genma would have been worried about such a person, even his son possessing such power, a power he admitted he probably under estimated, he was sure his son hadn't revealed the extent of which he was capable of for many years despite constantly winning in their sparring matches. He would have been worried if such behavior wasn't balanced by his acts of humanity, helping out a bullied student, stopping a mugging and enacting his healing techniques to save someone's life.

One event particularly stood out in Genma's mind. A young girl had been being bullied by a group of boys heavier and stronger than her and yet she had stood up to them, even going so far as to assume a clumsy martial arts stance. Her hurt, determined and saddened eyes had clearly moved his son to action. With an overly flashy rescue he had ensured that the girl would no longer be bullied without her attackers always looking over their shoulder. He doubted to this day whether his son even noticed the awe filled face of the girl he had rescued all those years ago, 'what was her name again' Genma wondered. 'Mak, ko..mko,' Genma gave up, it was a long time ago.

So who was his son and which was an act? Genma knew his son was a consummate actor and had the discipline to main a mask for years but both acts seemed so genuine. Just a decade ago he would have been proud of the façade of superiority but now he was more proud of the gentle and caring actions that his son spontaneously displayed.

Genma just prayed that the former was the act but too what purpose? There was no doubt that Ranma had become distracted by something here in Tokyo. When would his son let him into the secret life he led? When?


	5. Not just Rhetoric

An Empire Reborn

Ch5: Not just Rhetoric

The fleshy sound of parries and blocks echoed throughout the richly decorated throne room of the long dead kingdom as Ranma fought his lieutenant. Grunts of exertion and genuine pain belied the non-lethal aspect of the fight between the monarch and his subordinate, which was even now occurring before the symbol of his power. Only the satisfied grins on both of the combatant's faces gave any hint that it was anything but an attempt on the king's life.

"I cannot believe you Ranma!" Although Serenities piercing voice was loud enough to clearly be heard over the sounds of combat, Ehri did not hear them. "You planned this all along, didn't you?" Serenities hissing voice was filled with a commanding presence that only came with great power and the expectation that her every command would be obeyed, it was hard to ignore or disregard such a tone. Only Ranma's confident smirk carefully directed at his challenger gave any hint that he had heard her though and hinted that he was amused by her outrage. His lack of reaction only served to fuel her anger, she was not used to being ignored.

It was a surprised tinged outrage of someone who had poured their soul out for years, sacrificed their dreams expecting nothing in return, only to find out that their only companion had conspired to gift them the very dreams they had sacrificed. Anyone would have been grateful for such a gift but when Ranma had allowed Serenity to find out his plans, he had dropped the bombshell as if it were of no consequence. Serenity had been angered that he had with held such an important secret from her, with held it for years without so much as hinting what he had planned.

It was inevitable when she found out that she had been so thoroughly fooled for so long. The first hint had come when he had given his speech to the Martian refugees, a speech she had disregarded as rhetoric – so sure that he spent all of his time and effort on martial arts and that he had no interest in anything else. It had been a challenge to keep such an enormous secret from someone that was so close to him but he had just shown that he had been spectacularly successful and that his speech was not just rhetoric.

The secret that he had kept for years was a secret that he should never have been able to keep from her. "I don't know how it is possible that you managed to hide this from me in my own palace for so long, a palace may I remind you that I lived in my entire life. My mother and her mother before her were raised in this very building. When I find out I will make you pay king Ranma," the way she dripped his suddenly acquired title with such deadly ire caused Ranma to flinch noticeably.

Even the most observant spectator would never have seen him flinch though as he spared, since he had out of necessity used the flinch in a viscous attack, such was the nature of the style with which he spared. Refined on mars over generations, it was what gave them their reputation as the most feared warriors in the kingdom or at least one of the reasons. In this style there was no room for defense, no counterattacking was allowed, if you were not on the offensive you were losing.

It was an incredible sight, both sides entirely on the offensive, attacking. Serenity had seen mock fights between practitioners of this particular style before but never taken to this level. It was incredibly brutal with even the slightest error being fully exploited and painfully exploited, only Serenity's displeasure at her ward prevented her from being impressed by the powerful display.

Ehri was winning the fight, which was to be expected when Ranma was restricted to a single style. He usually favored the combination of many styles but he wouldn't learn anything if he overwhelmed her with his usual array of styles and Ehri had practiced this style her entire life, "if you keep this up you're going to get hurt Ranma." Serenity's anger relented slightly after seeing Ranma cruelly punished for a slight over extension.

Although his technique was generally good, he had learnt the style from books and virtual reality demonstrations, Ehri was a master who had dedicated her life to its refinement and learnt from other masters so there was little comparison between their skills. Only Ranma's steep learning curve, extensive experience in the martial arts and phenomenal endurance had kept him going this long. There was a lot he could add to this fight even restricted to the long dead style. Even so, it was an incredibly effective way for Ranma to pick up the style and she expected him to spend phenomenal amounts of time in the training room perfecting it and incorporating it into his own style.

It had surprised and excited her when the Martian refugee's had appeared out of time. She had never expected or foreseen the opportunity to rebuild her kingdom using Ranma and the Martians as a firm foundation and was so exiting by the prospect that she had almost failed to recognize the significance of the speed in which the refugee's had been organized and integrated into the palace.

Ranma and Ehri had quickly separated them out according to skills and shown them to working and refurnished guest accommodations within the palace and she wouldn't have expected any less from a ward of hers. While his father had had a significant impact on his rearing she had a significantly greater impact. Genma's legacy had been mostly combative while her own had yet to bloom, only experience would sharpen the myriad of skills she had passed down which would be important in any leader.

She had been so caught up in considering potential challenges involved in rebuilding the destroyed kingdom and how Ranma's level of education and experience combined with the state of the palace would effect any planned expansion that she had paid less attention to what the refugee's were doing after that. She had always known that Ranma had been tinkering around the edges of the palace, rebuilding some area's that were useful for his training and exploring the vast libraries which were stored there. What she hadn't known was that he had been repairing considerably more than just suitable training areas and researching tomes that covered far wider subject matters than martial arts.

It never occurred to her that someone from this time would be able to understand systems so far advanced from his own technological development. Ranma's bias towards martial knowledge was well known to her, she was used to having to drive the importance of everything else she though it proper for him too know.

Mostly, or so it appeared to her, he had only acceded to her demands to learn because she said so and not because she had succeeded in convincing him of the importance of such knowledge. If she had known that he had been independently learning related topics she would have been thrilled and it would have allowed her to teach him some truly important topics she had neglected.

When the palace had started to come to life she had been startled. Surely thousands of years of neglect had done as much or more damage as Beryl had done in her invasion. Certainly when she had first explored the palace as it was a mere decade ago she had been so disappointed at its condition that she had given up her dream of ever rebuilding her kingdom with the technology that abounded on the moon. So much expertise, which would have been required to make use of the broken pieces of tech, had been lost to time with little chances of ever regaining it.

Even if Ranma had gained enough people together that he trusted, it was a distant hope that even with the library's store of knowledge enough of that expertise could have been recovered within their lifetime. Finding a team of people who could be trusted in this day and age was an insurmountable problem by itself.

That is why she had been so thrilled when Ranma had convinced the Martians to stay, though the refugee's were relatively few there were enough teachers and engineers to reignite her hope of gathering enough expertise to be able to rebuild her kingdom to greater height than she had achieved at the peak of her reign. So when the palace had first started to come to life she had reasoned that the engineers had worked a miracle by rebuilding a few key systems.

When the palace had continued coming to life she had investigated, only to find that much of the damage to key systems had been repaired, allowing for the rapid deployment of the palace as a center of operations. There was only one person who could have been responsible for such an action. She had thought he was exaggerating and using mere rhetoric to fire the Martian refugees to action when he had announced to the Martians that he had been rebuilding the palace, using it as a ploy to demonstrate that they would be an integral and much needed part of his new empire.

How he could have kept that large a secret from her for so long was a mystery that continued to anger her, more at herself than at her ward, had she taught Ranma too much or was she losing the skills she had gained through a lifetime of politics. Skills that she needed to pass on to Ranma in the days ahead if he were to be successful in his undertaking of rebuilding her shattered kingdom. Had she been so easily manipulated, Ranma would have had to been rebuilding for ten years or more – how could she have been so blind.

Whatever the case she needed to find out, rushing to confront Ranma she had found him sparing with Ehri in the throne room. The admiration and respect in the lieutenant's eyes were as easily noticeable as her satisfied grin. Ranma could have ended this fight a long time ago, even with Ehri's enhancements she was no match for the power of the crystal or his own training but he had restricted himself so as to better learn and understand the Martian style from a master of it.

In the process he had earned Ehri's loyalty, she may have been following him because of his position before but now… "Enough," Ranma panted looking no better than Ehri herself, "you are indeed a master of your style. Let's spar again sometime since there are still a few flaws I need to work out," Ranma's strength still had not quite recovered from Ehri's revival earlier and already he was pushing his limits. Serenity shook her head at her wards drive.

"So how much of the palace have you repaired Ranma?" Even though she was still angry at Ranma's deception, she was even angrier with herself. A boy much younger and more naive then had manipulated her. Her, the queen of an interplanetary empire, someone who was used to being the political top dog.. He was obviously much smarter than she had gaven him credit for and with his large amount of reading much more savvy, which made the future all the brighter for the moon kingdom she planned on rebuilding with Ranma's help. A strong leader was vital for the growth and flourishing of any community and their technologically advanced kingdom would be no different.

Serenity watched as Ehri bowed and left to check on the various projects that Ranma had set up after the refugees had been quartered. "We should be able to establish a skeleton government and have the palace running at eighty percent within the week. Any mining, infrastructure or terraforming projects need more resources than we currently have stored."

"Then there is the problem of manpower, there is only so much we can do with robotics and there remain too many old military bases and undestroyed outposts which have yet to be explored. Now you know what I have been planning I can make faster progress on the AI I have been developing based on the research recovered from the supercomputers. You were so close to a solution when you developed the timegates but so very far away from a workable program."

Serenity just stared, she knew better than anyone how well he could develop and hold onto masks. She had taught him all she knew when it came to dealing with people, but she had no idea that he had hidden behind a mask from even her, other people - but never her. How could he have stood the loneliness, at least she had Ranma to pass the time in this crystal bound purgatory but if he had been hiding behind a mask from her then he would have had no one to confide in over the years. His father was not someone he could have revealed his secret life to and he had made no permanent friends on his training trip.

The thought that he had done all of this for her was a sobering thought, how could she be angry after the magnitude of that sacrifice. How could she even know that it was the real Ranma that she was now seeing and not another mask? Before this revelation she was positive that she really knew him, his likes, his dislikes and what motivated him - now she was only filled with doubts.

"Then there is the matter of our defenses," Ranma's recital had begun to take on a clipped quality even as Serenity tried in vein to school her expression. It was ironic that even as she had introduced Ranma to statecraft and taught Ranma how to put on the masks of a ruler when she had no hope that he would ever be such, Ranma had become adept at seeing through her own masks.

He must have thought such a sacrifice; such a gift would have made her enormously happy. Seeing her empire budding again after it had been suddenly cut down, her anger and outrage, shock and confusion, the doubt she now felt towards her ward rather than the happiness he expected must be hurting him deeply. It must have made his sacrifice for his surrogate mother feel rather hollow.

Serenity doubted he remembered his birth mother, over the long training trip he never talked about her. It saddened her remembering the parting of such a young child from his mother under such a cloud. Serenity was unsure whether he was purposely blocking out a painful memory or whether he was genuinely too young to remember life before his extended training trip. While it filled her with pride that Ranma considered her the mother he didn't remember and had allowed her to take an active part in his raising she couldn't help but wonder what her daughter would have turned out.

Would she have been as driven, so eager to please her as Ranma was? Or would she have grown spoilt with all the trappings of the wealth and power her position would have provided. Thinking about her daughter, dead thousands of years now inevitably made her think about the young girls masquerading as the reborn moon kingdom court. They wouldn't be too much of a threat by themselves but whoever was manipulating them behind the scenes could be dangerous and then there was Beryl. Who would be the greater threat in the months and years ahead? What would Ranma do about the queen who was responsible for the destruction of her kingdom so long ago?

"Ranma," she interrupted, washing all the doubts she held about her ward away and letting the excitement of rebuilding her kingdom against the backdrop of all the inevitable challenges that would inevitably arise to come to the fore. Courtiers, rulers and even Ranma could never resist the smile she beamed him at the moment, "if we are to counter all the problems and make plans for any future threats then you will need your rest. These matters will wait one night. Thank you son."

It surprised her that her gratitude was so sincere, this must have been what she had needed for a long time. As if sensing that genuine gratitude Ranma's face relaxed, she never noticed how tense he constantly held himself. His replying smile was all the answer she could have hoped for and more. For once she believed she was seeing her son without any of the masks he had clung to all his life. "You're welcome mother," nothing more needed to be said.

* * *

Beryl sat on her throne considering the remains of her once vast army. Serenity's prediction, or curse, had come true. History had long since ground the truth of their conflict to dust. Not even a whisper of their kingdoms had survived long after the cataclysmic confrontation between the two rulers. A confrontation that had banished her to a pocket dimension which was far removed from the earth she had once ruled with an iron fist.

Her only comfort was that the remnants of her once massive war host had been banished with her. It had allowed her to partially rebuild her strength and consolidate her power base while plotting for an escape from the void in which she had been driven. For her and her troops a mere hundred years had passed before they had learned to manipulate the void around them creating a gateway to the world beyond, only to find that thousands of years had passed on the outside.

She could only laugh at the irony of the situation, Serenity had banished her not just as a punishment for the atrocities she had committed but in the hope that society would have a chance to rebuilt to its former glory, time enough to build enough power to withstand another military inclusion from the remnants of her troops backed by the power of Metalia. It had not been the case.

With Metalia's power which she had learned to wield a long time ago, one hundred years being trapped in this prison was but a blink of an eye for her and her troops. They would not die of natural causes as long as Metalia's power remained strong in their veins. Despite being forced into hibernation for the duration of their exile, the dread spirits power remained constant.

Beryl had been lucky or unlucky enough to have discovered the powerful spirit early in her reign and with Metalia's urgings had looked for ways to increase both of their power. For her it had meant increasing her already iron grip over the provinces of earth while for Metalia it had meant the harvesting of life energy from the dregs of her kingdom – living sacrifices to Metalia was a small price to pay for the power she granted.

Beryl had been young and full of herself and that had ultimately led to her down fall and eventual banishment. Like the moon kingdom led by the young Serenity, the kingdom of earth was flourishing under her rule. Using the power of Metalia allowed her to tighten her grip over the people resulting in a burst of productivity and military wonders while the weak queen of the moon used her wealth in frivolous pursuit of science and not even military science. Disgraceful.

Drunk on her own power and influence at Serenity's court, when the young prince Endymion caught her eye she had been instantly overcome with lust and a need to possess him. 'Any why shouldn't I?' she had asked herself. She was, in her mind, the most powerful person in the system and possibly the galaxy. However it was a lust, a need, which was not reciprocated by the young prince despite some powerful overtures.

Beryl instantly felt betrayed by the prince, how was it that anyone could refuse her – someone of her station and power, a power boosted by Metalia's, wrapping her with an even greater aura of deadliness and might. Was she lacking in power, wealth, _position_? Who had caught his eye that he could so easily ignore her own advances? When she had found out why she had been scorned she had become enraged with jealousy and envy.

The prince had been bound to Serenity's get, the pre-pubescent, untested, snotty little princess of the Lunar court. It was clear to her that the prince had scorned her on the basis of Serenity's power and position, after all, while she far out shone the young unproven princess her mother ruled an empire far greater than her own- but not more powerful. To her mind it could have been the only explanation, it still was the only explanation she could think of after so many years of pondering her fate.

With a simmering jealousy and anger fuelled by Metalia's whisperings she had fled court and immediately started to build upon her already great military. She knew that Endymion, the young foolish prince would not dare scorn her when faced by the knowledge that the Moon kingdom may be bigger and richer but it was by no means greater or more powerful.

It had taken her a mere twelve months to position her forces to attack, her warriors may not have been sufficient to stand up to a moon kingdom guard on an even footing but she out numbered their pitiful forces a thousand to one. The greatest threat to her plans was the Great War planet of mars.

If she overwhelmed mars then she held a straight road to the moon palace and none of the other defenders of Serenity's kingdom were as knowledgeable, skilled or brutally determined to win when it came to war. Serenity had shown that when she had been unable to breach the Martian defenses. She had through diplomacy not war gained a powerful ally in mars. Even so, an ambush may be needed to ensure victory.

The day Prince Endymion had scorned her, Beryl had sworn she would accomplish what Serenity had not been able to do even if it spent three quarters of her forces, she would prove her worth through war. Once Mars had been ground beneath the heel of her armies' boots, Endymion would have no choice but to accept her advances and see her worthiness as far above that of the young princess.

In the end it had only taken half of her massive host, Mars had not been expecting an attack or to be outnumbered by such a large factor, when her troops flooded the small planet and even though they had responded magnificently they had not managed to regain the initiative her ambush had stolen so effectively. Standing triumphant over the ruins of Mars she had confronted Prince Endymion, oh how bitter his words had been.

"Do you think that this monstrous action would earn my love or my loyalty, you have been twisted by that spirit you rely upon to give you power. I will be forever bound to the young princess nothing you do will alter that, especially such a heinous act."

Once again she had foolishly listened to Metalia's council, giving in to the rage she felt at his words. If the destruction of the warlike mars had not proven her worth then she would leave nothing of the kingdom behind, for surely once Serenity's power had been shattered he would have no alternative but to turn to her. She had always been envious of the Princesses power anyway and with Mars destroyed she had never felt more superior. Beryl alone would hold the power for life and death in the solar system and perhaps the galaxy.

It had been deceptively easy to crush the Senshi – Serenity's warrior guardians and their people. There had been few survivors and with the damage she had done to the colonies it was doubtful that the survivors would be able to hold off the inevitable climate changes which would turn the once habitable planets into wastelands. Beryl could not understand how the rulers of the lesser planets could bend knee to Serenity in the first place but with the help of Metalia she had ended their continued humiliation.

Her blitzkrieg attacks had led her forces to the gates of the moon palace itself, all of Serenity's cohorts had been killed and she had been looking forward to humbling the once powerful ruler in her own thrown room. For all of the rumors of her technological and magical might she had seen very little of it, even to save her own kingdom.

The rumors that Pluto held an artifact that could manipulate time proved to be an exaggeration just like the moon kingdoms perceived greatness. She had seen no evidence or emergence of war winning magical or technological interference, from Pluto or anywhere else. Pluto remained as barren as it always had, devoid of life or artifacts.

Still for all of her confidence and superiority she had ultimately underestimated the moon Queen. Even at the cost of Serenity's life she had been banished to this strange place. Forcing Metalia into hibernation for the duration, no life energy existed in this place and she was not willing to sacrifice what remained of her armies.

But even with all knowledge of their respective kingdoms having vanished from the hearts and minds of the people generations from when Beryl had invaded the Moon Kingdom, her drive for vengeance had been consistently thwarted. Somehow a group of school girls had found the Ginzuishou and taken it upon themselves to oppose her with their sickeningly sweet ideals, ideals which age, experience and Metalia had long since ripped out of her.

Oh she knew well that Metalia had manipulated her but they both gained enough from each other for the relationship to continue. Her only real worry was if she lost control over events enough for Metalia to dominate her. If that happened, the dread power was more likely to destroy the earth and all life on it than help her rule over it. Still, for the hundred years that Metalia had been hibernating Beryl had not been idle, now if only she could deal with those schoolgirls then she would rest easier.

For all their successes against her troops however it was the mysterious third party she was really concerned about. She had only felt slight brushes and probes into her business, but enough to know that someone or something powerful was out there and whoever it was found the struggle for dominance beneath their notice.

Why else would they not choose a side in the struggle for dominance and fight in the hope of finding favor with the victor? No, once she had dealt with scouts she would confront the power with Metalia and defeat them much like she had Serenity. She had plans for those girl scouts, her string of defeats were starting to frustrate her.

* * *

Nabiki looked curiously at Ranma and his older companion, Ranma and his father were both staying in their home for the foreseeable future and the woman never left Ranma's side, meaning she would most likely be staying for an extended period as well. It seemed strange that she only knew the boy her father was so set on for her or her sisters marrying through his father. Except for a brief appearance at lunch yesterday she had not seen any trace of him around the dojo. It was like he had business in Tokyo but Genma claimed that they had newly come to this area. Was he avoiding them? Did he even know about the engagement arrangement?

He had left so abruptly after having blatantly ignored any questions at mealtime that she had been unable to arrange a trace. His companion was even smoother at deflecting questions than he was, despite being grilled she was no nearer to knowing either of them. Sure his father had filled them in on background, skills and personality but even he admitted there was a lot he didn't know about his son and his activities. After all, Ranma had apparently spent a lot of time learning from other masters away from his father.

When he had suddenly and unexpectedly popped up this morning his father had been ready, sternly telling him that he would be attending the same school as Akane and her. All of them had been waiting for an objection, his distaste for anything non-martial was well established by his father the night before. He seemed from his fathers descriptions to all intensive purposes little better than an ignorant jock with his skills in martial arts adding to his overweening arrogance, Genma had tried to put Ranma in the best light but Nabiki was very good at reading between the lines. Yet Ranma just smiled, accepted the bag thrust at him and followed Nabiki out the door, Ehri as always shadowed him wherever he went.

"Mind telling me why you look so pleased going to school Ranma? I thought you hated school," it was true. Ranma was walking with relaxed gait and a pleased smile on his face and a distracted look in his eye as if he was thinking about something else. Nabiki glanced suspiciously at Ehri, his behavior didn't seem to match anything that Genma had told them about his son, was she responsible? What exactly was there relationship? She had to do this quick, they were already nearing Furikan and she needed information that was best gleaned from Ranma. What he said and what he didn't say would tell her a lot, almost as much as how he said it.

"Oh nothing that really concerns you or you family Nabiki, I wouldn't worry yourself." His relaxed manner was contagious, she found herself relaxing in turn and she almost left it at that, implicitly trusting him before her suspicious nature reasserted itself. How would he know what concerned her or her family? He knew even less about them than they knew about him.

"Really Saotome?" She replied archly, "and how would you know that." Nabiki had to suppress her amusement at the way Ehri's face stiffened, obviously biting off a retort. What was their relationship; it was a question that intrigued her. Ehri's response indicated…

"Nabiki, I understand that you just want to know who I am, who my father is and who Ehri is. We are imposing on your family and it is only fair that you know our intentions and how they will affect your family." Nabiki blinked at the hypnotic quality to his honey rich voice, Ranma had obviously done this before.

Only her own quick wit and experience in judging, reading and dealing with people allowed her to keep up with the silver tongued boy. There was little question that he was easily leading the conversation; it was an odd experience to have had the tables turned so easily. Where she would have relied on blackmail and wit, Ranma it seamed made exquisite use of body language and tone.

Genma had insinuated that he was a martial arts jock, the experienced diplomat she saw before her was not compatible with that image. Her confusion and doubt must have been easily readable on her face, further confirming that Ranma was an old hand at dealing with even more experienced manipulators than she. Nabiki had intended on their way to school to rope him into giving more information than he may have wanted to provide and now she almost felt that she would answer any question that he asked, it was very vexing but she couldn't seem to concentrate enough to gather her thoughts and defenses. "I will of course answer any questions after school but we have reached Furikan so it will have to wait."

His relaxed and measured pace never changed as the school walls appeared before them effectively ending their exchange, for which Nabiki was grateful. It was clear that Ranma was far more than she expected and their next exchange would need to be planned methodologically.

Today she had been unprepared for his smooth tongue and superior manner, next time she would not be. From what she had seen of Genma he would have been an easy mark to his son's mechanizations. Any information about his son from that particular source would need to be examined carefully and probably disregarded, he was not the reliable and independent source of information she hoped he would be.

Putting Ranma out of her mind she prepared for her dealings at school, they at least would let her regain some of the confidence she had lost by being soundly defeated in her own game by a martial arts jock. It surprised her then when Ranma shoved her into his companion roughly and jumped in front of the student body.

"Ehri," where his voice and manner were once relaxed and smooth it was now rich and commanding. His bearing matched the change as she was manhandled away from him. The sound of the crumbling stone wall which bordered the school combined with the shredding of the old oak which celebrated its founding, quickly changed her mind about objecting to Ranma's rough behavior followed by his companion's man handling.

All around him the ground exploded revealing small craters. His quick action had no doubt saved some deaths among the students early to arrive, even so Ranma had not escaped totally unscathed – blood adorned a side where something had viciously ripped through his shirt. Even so, Ranma showed no sign of pain or discomfort as he faced the horribly scared and heavily muscled young man who stalked out of the debris.

"Ranma, because of you I've seen Hell!" Nabiki shuddered knowing that she would have nightmares of that voice for weeks.


	6. The Beginnings of an Empire

An Empire Reborn

Ch6: The Beginnings of an Empire

Nabiki watched the school gates intently as they approached the school. She refused to look at Ranma or his companion, the ease at which she had been out maneuvered scared her and she was desperately trying to think of a way to regain the initiative. Her family's future and potential safety relied on her being able to probe Ranma for information about his past and future intentions. If his answers indicated a threat to her family she needed to be able to manipulate Ranma or get rid of him. He was decidedly too powerful to be so close to her family and remain completely mysterious. She got the distinct impression that both his father and Ehri took his lead so if she could manipulate him the other too wouldn't be a problem.

Still the situation worried her. One of her sisters was supposed to be engaged to this completely unknown and powerful stranger. Both his father and constant companion where supposed to be insanely powerful fighters and Ranma at least appeared to be extremely intelligent. Normally she was supremely confident entering into any kind of situation but she felt out of here depth with the latest mess her father had landed in her lap.

So far she had reveled far more than he had, and that was not a position that she was used to being in and she was struggling to regain her equilibrium. 'No' she thought firmly 'for now I will focus on my operations at school, my best ideas usually come to me when I'm working.' Although her face was carefully neutral of any expression, inside her confidence was quietly building from the low it had been when Ranma effortlessly turned her questions aside, unsettling her dominance in dealing with people.

'Next time things w…' "Hey!" Nabiki squawked as her thoughts were jarringly interrupted by a hard shove from Ranma as they entered the school gates. The school grounds shifted disorientatingly as her head hammered back with the force of her forceful movement. "What is going…" her enraged demand was interrupted by Ranma's companion forcefully dragging her to the corner of the school grounds away from where Ranma had suddenly bounced and appeared to be waiting for an attack.

Although to most people he would appear relaxed, she noticed subtle signs that indicated that he was ready to respond to anything. What could the problem possibly be, Kuno was probably still at the Kendo club hall and no one else was likely to attack a new student for no reason. Was she about to get some answers about Ranma's past so easily and why did she feel unnerved with the possibility of getting some free and effortless information about her unexpected houseguest.

Before she could further reason Ranma's unexpected behavior or struggle against Ehri's impossibly strong grip, time slowed. The old stonewalls which bordered the school grounds crumbled, debris thundered into a disordered pile throwing dust into the air. She watched the old oak tree which had stood at the entrance of the school since Furikan's founding generations ago shredded, woodchips and leaves ripped ruthlessly in Ranma's direction as unseen blades rushed towards him.

Small explosions sounded around where Ranma was standing, craters exploded more debris into the air. "He'll be killed" Nabiki choked out in worry through the dust filled air from the corner of the schoolyard. She hadn't known him for long but he was her fathers' best friends' son and she had seen what her mothers death had done to her father, she didn't even want to consider what Ranma death would do to him.

Only the tightening of Ehri's grip indicated that she heard or cared about what Nabiki had said. As the explosions died down, Nabiki became aware of the screaming student body fleeing from the battle feild, which had unexpectantly engulfed Furikan.

Nabiki looked disbelievingly at the scarred and pockmarked schoolyard. Dust and smoke obscured her vision slightly but she wasn't so far away from Ranma that she couldn't see Ranma's pleased and expectant smile or smell the blood that filled the air. A cruel tear in Ranma's silk shirt and the welling of blood beneath belied his relaxed, unconcerned and yet powerfully commanding posture.

Whether by design or by accident Ranma's positioning near the centre of the schoolyard had saved injury and death among those students who were now fleeing in terror. "Is it over?" Nabiki whispered as the explosions stopped and the stonewall finished tumbling onto the earth as gravity pulled on the last of the shattered remains.

As if mocking her whispered question, a figure stepped out of the debris cloud of dust and smoke. "Ranma, because of you I've seen Hell!" It was a male's voice, a voice that was rugged and harsh as if the throat it came from was still recovering from injury and his words were bitten out with rage and hatred that she had not encountered before.

Shuddering at the fear the voice inspired Nabiki stepped closer into Ehri's grip. After the destruction the man had just unleashed she was glad she was not in Ranma's shoes. She didn't doubt that she would hear that voice in her nightmares for some time but she wouldn't admit that to anyone.

Nabiki started in surprise as the owner of the voice stalked out of the cloud further in an interception path with Ranma fully revealing himself, it was only a boy of barely 16 with a strange gait, as if one of his legs were still recovering from a bad break. Despite his odd posture the boy's frame was heavily filled with bulging muscles and his numerous scars gave him the look of a seasoned fighter. Looking closely at the boy's frame and stance she didn't think his age reflected his ability to fight very closely.

Nabiki shivered in fear at the sight of the boy who had caused such effortless destruction in an attempt to kill Ranma. Despite the attempt on his life and the destruction and show of power that surrounded him, Ranma looked relaxed with a friendly smile fixed firmly on his face. How powerful was Ranma that he showed no fear in the face of such danger and lethal intent.

"I'm kind of busy today Ryoga, can you come back later – we'll spar then." Ranma's flippant tone only served to enrage the boy further. The boy's body took on a more deadly cast as he adopt a combat stance, "do you call this sparring Ranma?" Ryoga spat, "I will kill you for the hell you've put me through, and only then will I be able to continue with my life."

Nabiki shook her head at Ranma's attitude, 'why wasn't he taking this more seriously? The boy looked quite capable of carrying out his threat and judging by the remains of the school yard, she did not want to be caught in the middle of it.' Ranma's nonchalant stance only further enraging the boy, 'Was he deliberately provoking the boy, or was he just suicidal?' Nabiki didn't know Ranma well enough to make a judgment but from her limited experience Ranma knew exactly what he was doing.

'So what is he up to?' Clearly the key to being able to manipulate Ranma was to find his ulterior motive, his absences still irritated her and she was itching to find out what he was up to. None of that was possible if he was killed and by the way Ehri was gripping her she was not certain what the outcome of this fight would be. If such a close companion was unsure of the fights outcome then why did she get the feeling that Ranma was just playing with Ryoga.

Nabiki winced in pain as Ehri once again tightened her grip as Ryoga pulled some bandanas off his head and flung them at Ranma. Although Ranma easily avoided the projectiles Nabiki shivered at the large craters they dug in the grounds and brick work of the buildings behind Ranma and wondered what would happen if one were to ever hit him. Her eyes were once again drawn to the large cut on Ranma's side and the increasing blood soaked shirt he wore. She shivered as she looked at the wreckage surrounding her and considered her younger sister getting involved with anyone this dangerous. No, that is one bridge that needed to be avoided at all costs – these people are miles above Akane's skill. Her little sister's pride would see her decimated.

"I'll tell you what Ryoga," Ranma grinned condescendingly. "Lets finish this quickly, I start school today." Ignoring Ryoga's cry of frustration Ranma crouched low and leapt at the heavily muscled boy. Keeping half an eye on the fight Nabiki shook Ehri off of her before she bruised further than she already had.

"Is Ranma going to be alright?" she asked rubbing her bruising arms after having freed them from Ehri's vice like grip. She had not seen Ehri leave Ranma once since she had met her, so Ehri should be able to tell her if her judgment of the situation was close to the mark.

Ehri frowned worriedly, "I can only assume that he has the boy Ryoga outmatched by his behavior but the fight looks to close call and Ranma can't use his greatest source of power, otherwise it would have been over before it had begun." Nabiki tried to hide a triumphant smirk as Ehri started to open up, thoroughly engrossed in the fight with her worry at its outcome clearly marked on her face.

Although unexpected she would take whatever she could get, Ranma seemed to be occupying Ryoga for the moment as they pounded on each other, so she would take this opportunity to quiz his shadow for a while.

"Greatest power, what do you mean?" Ehri looked sharply away from the fight and gazed piercingly at Nabiki as if just realizing what she had said. Although she was good at reading and manipulating people, she couldn't help but be a little intimidated by Ranma and her companion. Ranma's unconcerned and commandingly dismissive stance in the face of Ryoga's destructive display and Ehri's hints that he was hiding a much greater power caused a chill to run down her spine.

"The style Ranma is using," Ehri started, changing the subject and refocusing on the fight between Ranma and the brute Ranma had identified as Ryoga. "He will lose if he restricts himself to that," Nabiki just shook her head in amazement at Ehri's assessment. Living in a dojo her whole life she had learned a few tricks when it came to judging the outcome of a fight. This one though, how could she judge who was winning when attacks and styles were far outside of anything she had experienced. Still, if the fight between the two fighters were as close as it seemed to her, why would Ranma be restricting his fighting style, was he trying to even the fight between Ryoga and himself or was he trying to lose?.

"Crack, snap!" Nabiki winced as she watched Ranma land a blow, forcing Ryoga to land unsteadily on the pock marked and heavily battered battlefield. His follow up smashed into the overly muscled boy's knee, snapping the leg in two and leaving it flopping unsupported underneath him. "Looks like the fight is over," Ranma panted his face pale from blood loss as gained some space between them.

"Do you think this is really enough to stop me Ranma? You should know – you've injured me far worse before in our 'sparing' sessions before." Nabiki stared at Ryoga as he perched on his unbroken leg, readying for an attack. 'How can he stand the pain' she thought 'and Ranma, how can you still be standing.' She had watched as he had taken hits that had smashed concrete walls and shredded the earth around him. Only the blood pooling at his feet seemed to affect him, Nabiki looked at Ehri with a worried frown as if seeking reassurance that this wouldn't finish in the death of one of the combatants.

If Ranma had enemies this strong in his past and he was unable or unwilling to deal with them efficiently then her family was at risk. How could she safely get rid of the Saotome's though if they were that powerful? Ehri had indicated that Ranma held even more power but why hadn't he used it before now. So why hadn't he used it before now?

'Hang on' she thought worriedly. 'They've done this before and by Ryoga's tone and disfigurements it was probably more than once before.' Nabiki nodded in understanding at Ryoga's resentment, 'no wonder his out for blood and a little psychotic. Still it makes me wonder what Ranma is really capable of and what else is hidden in his past.

Ranma's weak laughter echoed over the destroyed schoolyard, "I only needed to destroy your mobility Ryoga since you have a natural defense against the style I've been using. Surely you noticed that I've been restricting myself to that single form, weak as it is." Nabiki raised her eyebrow at Ranma's audacity and strength of will. It seemed that he had been planning all this from the beginning and to be able to stick with his plan and take so much punishment was admirable, even if he did look close to collapsing and had ruthlessly broken Ryoga's leg in the process. Nabiki could admire a well-executed plan but what was the purpose, she still hadn't worked that out.

Ryoga's smirk barely hid the rage she could see shining through his eyes, "I noticed Saotome and I was wondering when you would get serious. You don't look to healthy yourself, are you sure you wouldn't do us all a favor and DIE!" Nabiki's mind boggled at seeing Ryoga launch an attack with the one leg only to be knocked to the ground by a weakly smiling Ranma.

"Your right Ryoga, it is time to end this," he announced conversationally striking hard at Ryoga's exposed throat. Nabiki gasped at the fatal strike only to see a wooden staff deflect it at the last minute resulting in a crushed collar bone instead of a mangled windpipe. "I was wondering when Ryoga's allies would show up," Ranma grinned excitedly roughly kicking Ryoga to the side and ignoring the cracking his ribs made.

"You are powerful stranger, but you are no match for me in that condition." Ehri's face was blank of all expression but Nabiki could feel the tension in her stance behind her. The old woman pogo'd on her staff towards Ryoga's fallen form and checked his pulse before turning back towards Ranma, "Do you want to give it a go old ghoul?" Ranma spat bloodily to one side grinning though blood stained teeth as if inviting her to try something. His expression was one filled with confidence as if even weak as he was he could still take on the world and win.

"Shampoo, take the injured male back to the encampment" the old woman commanded as a luscious Chinese girl with long purple hair appeared from nowhere to drag the defeated boy from the wrecked remains of the school yard. "We'll meet again stranger," the old woman chuckled as she and the young girl disappeared over the top of the school building. Nabiki was amazed that after such a climactic fight it had all ended so suddenly and with apparent ease. Ranma had been playing with the revenge-crazed boy so that he could flush out his allies, Nabiki could only admire his deviousness.

"Ehri, lets go – I think school will be cancelled for the day and I still have things that require my attention." Nabiki blinked as Ehri raced from behind her to Ranma's side just as Ranma collapsed into her arms. He limped slowly from the schools yard, supported by the woman at his side. "I'm sorry Nabiki, our little chat will have to be postponed," he mumbled as they disappeared behind what remained of the stonewalls surrounding the schoolyard.

Not willing to let it go so soon or with such a lack of finality, Nabiki chased after them only to find that they had vanished as soon as they had left her site. Even the trail of blood seemed to just stop behind the pile of rubble that encircled the school grounds. "Who dare's to disturb the sanctity of the holy Furikan grounds, I will smite thee!" Bellowed a pompous voice as Tatewaki stormed onto the battle site in full Kendo gear, his boken held ready to attack an opponent who had long since been defeated and moved.

"Kuno, you're an idiot," Nabiki remarked as she started walking back home. Without Ranma to answer some questions and with the rest of the school body having fled the destruction, there wasn't a lot else she could do.

* * *

"Are you insane…" Serenity screeched as Ranma sat back on a stretcher in the medical wing of the moon palace. "You do realize how close you came to dying today don't you, and unless you used the crystals power you would never have been able to defeat the old woman." Ranma sighed as he tried to block out Serenity's lecture.

Sure his plan had been risky but he had pulled it off okay and that was the main thing, Serenity was getting worked up over nothing. Now he was back at the moon palace he was already healing with the power of the crystal, a decent meal and a good night's sleep and he'd be as good as new.

He couldn't risk detection so early so the use of the extra power granted to him by the moon crystal was limited to the palace except for emergencies, like him dying – or at least in danger of dying. His use of too much power drawn from the crystal would be like a beacon to those who could detect the use of such power. Only structures like the moon palace was a defense to that, allowing him to use its power freely.

"Are you even listening to me Ranma?" Serenity screeched in his ear. Ranma sighed again and turned his head to face Serenity, he had rarely seen her so mad and he had known her all his life. She of all people should understand that at times certain risks needed to be taken to milk the most out of a situation, judging from her expression though he had probably taken it too far and worried her too much.

"It worked didn't it?" Ranma mumbled suddenly feeling guilty. After all, this time he hadn't really told Serenity the full extent of what he had planned. He had acted alone not even mentioning to the woman who had raised him what too expect. "I'm sorry that I worried you, but whoever Ryoga managed to find in his quest for vengeance now sees me as a serious opponent and not someone that can be taken lightly."

"Despite their obvious desire to hide, I managed to flush them out and dealt with Ryoga without the possibility of tipping off any of my other enemies. Enemies that are capable of attacking me at any time, Beryl would probably jump at the chance to finish me off and the longer I can gather my strength without exposing myself to the puppet master behind those school girls, the better."

"What about the small leakage of power that I detected throughout the fight, don't tell me it was a lack of control during your fight, I know you better than you think, there's more to it than that." Ranma shook his head at Serenity's mood change. No matter what she was feeling he could always manage to distract her with the plots and schemes of statecraft, he sometimes wondered if she realized that she was that easily manipulated.

"I'm not content to sit here while I establish the moon palace as a powerful base of operation. My enemies are not standing still and so neither can I. Now help me come up with a plan to start recruiting people from Earth to my cause. If I have to wait until the Martians populate my kingdom it will be another thousand years in coming."

Serenity smiled craftily down at Ranma as he shifted to a more comfortable position on the stretcher. "You didn't answer my question Ranma, what are you up to?" her inquisitive tone trailed off as Ehri re-entered the room.

"My king," his lieutenant saluted sharply before approaching "the repairs are slightly ahead of schedule, there should be no delays and the palace should be fully operational by weeks end. You will need to populate your kingdom before our empire reaches full strength though," Ranma thanked her before activating his virtual consol and dismissing her. After all he was supposed to be recovering Ranma grinned wryly.

"Now my queen," Ranma smiled artfully, turning back toward Serenity referring to her previous position eagerly tapping away at his consol "how about we run some simulations?" Entering in the possibility of three enemies with power on par with his own, Ranma considered ways to thwart them and gain control over large tracts of land on earth with the support of the people living there in the process. He doubted if there would be three opponents who would or could seriously challenge his power but by planning for the worst victory would be that much sweeter.

The most obvious solution would be an armed incursion. By weeks end, his operations would be fully operational meaning that the time and resources required for building and outfitting a force capable of overwhelming any defenses on earth would be minimal. Ranma's typing intensified as he continued adding in suitable parameters for his computer to instantly compute a probability of success.

Even assuming that his opponents could match his power he felt confident that he would be able to maintain control over the space surrounding the earth. His production ability would thus quickly outstrip anything even Beryl could match and with her non-renewable source of troops his eventual victory would be assured.

Chuckling evilly Ranma let Serenity look over his shoulder at the humming simulation, "that will never work you know, humans are tricky and if your opponents are half as troublesome as you are, then a conflict like this would lose you the thing you were all fighting over." Ranma just smirked at her pessimism, whatever probability of total victory the computer gave him he felt confident he could increase it by half again – the computer was always erring on the side of caution itself.

Even so, he suspected she was right, an armed conflict would not bring the earth he wanted into his empire but a shattered shell of his pyretic victory. The computer beeped as the results of the simulation scrolled down the display. His probability of total victory was judged to be 5 with his chances of victory increasing to 60 if accepted the shattered crust of earth's former glory. While he had always expected his enemies to cause the greatest destruction he was surprised that the chances of the great powers of earth banding together in an effort to repel him and causing massive destruction were quite high.

His forces had not escaped unharmed either with the possibility of his own Martian subjects all surviving being quite low. With the cost of victory too high and his objectives of integrating earth into greater empire nearly impossible under an armed invasion scenario Ranma turned to another possibility.

"Agghhh! I never expected that to work anyway," Ranma commented glancing sideways at Serenity. "But how often do you get to take over the world, even if only virtually and I wanted to see what the computer thought about it. How about just buying up huge tracts of land using the proceeds from the resources so readily available in space, and succeeding from earth?"

Typing in the appropriate parameters Ranma was surprised to see that the probabilities for the legal scenario were about as low as the armed incursion one. "That is strange," Ranma muttered looking more closely at the data the computer had spat out.

"Never underestimate a peoples sense of nationalism and pride, as soon as your enemies let slip what you were trying to achieve, no mater how peacefully, armies would be formed to stop you. It is a lesson my descendants learnt early on."

"This scenario only ended with slightly higher probabilities because you attempted to include people and so you had a greater support base. The fear of fascism was imbedded so deeply into the people of earth's character over the last century that you would be wise to avoid stirring such fears again."

Serenities superior grin over Ranma's shoulder annoyed him. She had always been telling him that relations between states were harder than he thought and now she was being proved right. He would need a balance of approaches that would take into consideration the cultures and histories of earth people. Still, the expression on Serenity's face deserved some kind of playful response.

"We'll you know? I could always do this…" Ranma replied in a serious tone frantically typing in even more complex parameters. With his eyes filled with excitement and his face twisted into a feral smirk, Ranma hit a final key to start the scenario.

"You're not serious Ranma, starting your own religion – that would never work!" Serenity dismissed from over his shoulder looking expectantly at the display as the simulation finished. "You must have made a mistake in your parameters Ranma," Serenity frowned uncertainly "you wouldn't would you. That's morally suspect and the chances of the power corrupting even you despite me being around to keep an eye on things is very high."

Ranma chuckled at Serenity, feeling every bit vindicated, "says here I have an 80 chance of achieving all my objectives. Bringing a peaceful earth into my budding empire, defeating my opponents and moving on to building an even grander empire than you could imagine. Of course it also says that I'll have to retreat from civilization once a stable government has been established to prevent the scenario you painted from coming true." Smiling reassuringly at Serenity he moved back to his computer, "naw- I doubt I could pull of godhood long enough for it to work. Besides I'm a much more hands on type of person."

Ignoring Serenities sigh of relief Ranma considered the problem a little more. How could he…. Frowning in concentration, Ranma made a few corrections to his current parameters and added a few more. "How's this for a plan…" he announced eagerly reveling in Serenities look of approval and pride, the probabilities could have been higher but then Ranma Saotome never lost so it wasn't an issue.

* * *

Makoto Kino hummed forlornly as she prepared a serving of chicken tatsuta, the bite sized pieces of chicken thigh sizzled in her own recipe of sauce. Sometimes the oppressive quite of the house really got to her and she did what she could to liven things up and make some noise. Her humming increased in tempo as she checked to see if the wakame seaweed had soaked for long enough, she couldn't begin preparing the side of cucumber salad until it had softened enough.

She hated these quite and lonely nights worse than anything else in her life, before her parents had died in an airplane crash dinner times and evenings had been a family time. Her parents would talk about their day, ask Makoto about school and they would often discuss the future. Plans, wishes, hopes and dreams. All that had vanished, leaving her alone in an empty house. It was something she had never fully appreciated and now she missed it greatly.

Deciding that the wakame was finally ready she drained the bowl of water and started to add the cucumber to the rest of the salad. Oh, she had tried dating around to find someone to fill the hole left in her life, but she had so far been unsuccessful. None of the boys she had dated really understood what it was like to live alone, none truly understood her well enough to even begin filling that gaping hole in her life and none were responsible or mature enough to understand her circumstances. She supposed it wasn't entirely there fault, at her age she would have been the same had he parents not been taken away so cruelly.

Smiling nostalgically at the smell of the chicken thighs she added them to her plate. This was one of her favorite dishes and she could smell when it was cooked to perfection. Glancing sadly at the empty places around the table Makoto sighed as a wave of loneliness hit her again.

"Bleep….Bleep, Bleep…Bleep"

'Ahhh, that's just what I need to snap me out of this funk, a good fight,' Makoto grinned as she grabbed her communicator. Her life had definitely started to look up since she had fought off those bullies that had been bullying Usagi. Mostly just looking for a good brawl, she had seen Usagi's situation as a godsend. Since then they had become firm friends and when she had discovered that she was Sailor Jupiter they had become even closer. Usagi's role as the princess almost cemented it.

For the first time she had been included into a close knit group of friends and she was incredibly grateful to Usagi for that. Her life hadn't led itself to making many close friends, but Usagi had embraced her anyway. "Makoto here, who needs some ass whooping," she announced staring in surprise at Ami Mizuno. While they were friends and she was a sailor it was usually Usagi or Rei that contacted her about sailor business. Makoto was more used to talking to Ami on the phone than the Scout communicator.

"No one I hope, I have detected some interesting readings and I wanted your advice." Makoto blinked in surprise, Ami was the smartest person she knew and she wanted her advice. She could hardly suppress a growing feeling of curiosity though, since Ami was almost never wrong and rarely needed help. With the help of her mercury computer she often discovered things first and held all the answers.

"So, what's up Ami? You're the smartest person I know, why do you need my advice. Usually you only call me when there's some unbeatable monster that needs pounding." If their team members were ever divided and classified into roles Ami would be the brains and she would be the fists, not that she minded too much. It was nice to let out some frustration every now and again and although she wasn't as smart as Ami she knew at a pinch she could get through most situations on her own.

"This morning I detected a small trace of moon kingdom energy, if my computer hadn't been looking for it at that precise moment it is doubtful that I would have detected it at all." Makoto sighed as Ami droned on about the strength and fluctuations of the energy, she wasn't that interested in the science or the probability of the mercury computer detecting such a small signal, but for some reason Ami thought important to tell her.

"Surely it would be better to ask Luna or Artemis about it?" Makoto asked politely as she started picking at her meal, she had so been looking forward to a good brawl. She was glad Ami called though it was good to hear from her friends outside school hours or Sailor Scout business. "That is something more in there realm of expertise, maybe it's an artifact or someone else was reborn from the moon kingdom."

"If there was something specific to ask or I knew for sure it was either of those things I would. What struck me as most interesting was that it was accompanied by a weak negative signal." Makoto's hopes began to rise before she realized that any monster would be long gone if she had detected the signal that morning. "What do you think Makoto?"

Makoto blushed in embarrassment; she had completely missed the question. Apologizing profusely she hoped that she hadn't missed anything else important "Sorry, Ami what do I think about what?" She almost turned away at the worried frown on Ami's face. It was embarrassing enough to have missed the question but to have Ami worried about her as well.

"I asked if you thought we should investigate this anomaly ourselves or contact the rest of the scouts first? We don't really have much to tell them but it could be dangerous." Makoto grinned, to her the answer was obvious. Quickly bolting the rest of her meal down and leaving the dishes were they lay she stood up in anticipation.

"I'll be there in five minutes, if it was a moon kingdom signal that you detected we have nothing to worry about – we're the good guys right?" Ami sighed into the communicator as if she expected Makoto's answer. Makoto closed the connection before Ami could think of arguments which would involve them telling the rest of the scouts and spoiling her fun.

A/N – I thought it would be cool to add some side stories of Ranma living his megalomania scenarios, what do you think.


	7. The first card in a monarch’s deck

An Empire Reborn

Ch7: The first card in a monarch's deck

Mahyu ignored the feeling of blood drying and caking on her arms despite the constant coatings of fresh blood which only served to thicken the layer of caking, although it made her skin feel stiff and unresponsive it didn't really affect how she did her job. She ignored the urge to wash off the red bodily fluids from her arms and hands and scrub out the gore that encrusted her nails.

Her medical training screamed at her that by ignoring the almost overwhelming urge for cleanliness she was helping to spread disease and infection. Looking over the hastily built field hospital overflowing with wounded, dying and hollow faced soldiers she couldn't help but think that disease and infection were the last of their problems and that by taking the time to scrub her hands and arms would be wasteful and counter productive.

Even before she had first heard the planet wide wails that signaled a ground attack she had been frantically dealing with the dead and injured from the overwhelming of their outer defensive fortifications. She was lucky in a way, her medical compound held a state of the art rejuv chamber. It was one of only a few built on the planet and it worked miracles in times of attack but who would have foreseen the use it was being put to today or the overwhelming load that it was straining under.

"We have some more survivors here!" Mahyu looked up from the body she had been working on. If her current patient was given time she had no doubt that he would survive, even with the limbs that she had roughly removed in some very rushed battlefield surgery. The poor soldier she had just finished working on would not fight again and it was for that reason that he wasn't given any sort of priority to be moved into the limited space within the rejuv chamber.

Grimacing at the feel of her slimy hands grasping the small metal touch, she gave the newly arrived survivors a quick glancing over, sorting those that suffered massive trauma from the massively destructive weapons of her age from those that had been struck by debris. It wasn't often that the former survived long without urgent medical attention and due to the current attack their limited resources just did not stretch far enough.

Lifting eyelids and shining her torch directly into the eyes of the unconscious soldiers to see how their iris responded to the light allowed Mahyu to form a more accurate assessment of their health and chances of survival. "Those two can go into the rejuv chamber," she murmured before moving onto the next casualties of Beryl's betrayal. It was obvious early on who was responsible for these casualties. "Prep those over there for immediate surgery and move those three to the corner."

She didn't even think twice about the decisions she made anymore, the blood and death all formed a haze around her leaving her brain to make decisions on auto pilot, decisions that under normal circumstances she would have felt morally repulsed about making. If the three she had just sent to the corner survived until Beryl's troops were fought off, maybe then they would get some medical attention, she had watched others breathe their last in that corner though, so she didn't hold much hope.

She knew that by sending those three into the corner as she had sent countless others since the start of this nightmare had been sentencing them to death but she couldn't possibly save them all. Resources were nearing breaking point and if she tried she would end up being able to save none.

Her staff was so overwhelmed that those being prepped for surgery would find whole limbs removed in an effort to stave of future infection, disease or other complications which would make the loss of one or two limbs negligible. She could only spare the more powerful medication for those that would be able to fight before the battle was over. The more that recovered sufficiently to be sent back to the field of battle the better and the rejuv chamber was instrumental in that.

The rejuv chamber was not really a miracle but rather a very clever application of medical science. It was merely an enclosed room that continuously pumped out synthetic hormones and other biological chemicals in an attempt to speed up the bodies' recovery and strengthen its immune system. The development of the rejuv chamber was a huge breakthrough in how disease and injury was treated on the battlefield and off. If a patient sat in the room long enough bones would knit, muscles would grow and skin would heal over without a scar in a matter of days instead of months.

It was for this reason she only provided the limited room for the least injured and not the most injured. While it could be used to save lives, Mar's situation and potential sovereignty was in such a precarious situation that every extra fighter sent back to the battle field was worth more than a life saved. It may have been cruel and it was a decision that would no doubt haunt her for a long time but the situation warranted hard choices and would no doubt deliver harsh consequences. 'There will be time to second guess and grieve after the crisis had passed' she thought through the fatigue promoted haze.

Wiping some hair out off her eyes Mahyu didn't even register the blood she smeared across her face from her bloodied hands and gore mattered fingers, at the moment she was more occupied by the once healthy limbs she was cutting from the bodies of men and women in the prime of their life. It was a tragedy for Mars but even more it was a tragedy for humanity. War she had found always was.

"Doctor Mahyu come with me please," Mahyu blinked at the crisp military command barely looking away from the surgery that occupied her. It seemed strange after so long dealing with such death and sickness to hear such a healthy voice that didn't belong to her staff. She had begun to doubts she ever would again and the request sounded more like a demand to her, it was enough to rile anyone in this horrific situation.

"I'm a little busy at the moment, surely you would be more interested in the solders in the rejuv room. Some of them must be combat ready by now." It was a spiteful snub at the military officer but she was stressed and felt entitled to her tired snipping. Mahyu moved to the next body, annoyed that she was being distracted from the fragile and important work that she was doing, she may only be using the barest piece of her medical training at the moment but she was still making a difference and contributing to the war effort. In fact she had long since started to work through a double shift.

"If you do not come with me now, under the authority of the princess I will be forced to drag you." Mahyu looked up at the cold bearing of the military officer, a lieutenant from her stripes and took an instant dislike to her. Who was she to claim the princess's authority and order her about? Flicking blood at the arrogant officer from a mocking solute, Mahyu followed the lieutenant outside her tent and stared in surprise at the motley crew that had accompanied the overbearing officer to her gore filled tent.

"I'm sorry doctor but your skills are too valuable to lose in this losing battle," she heard before being hurried on in confusion. She did wonder how her staff would cope without her to support them in their emergency battlefield surgery; they were already at breaking point as it was.

Now she couldn't help but wonder how they had faired as she left them to fend for themselves. Had they still been conducting emergency surgery when a Terran gunship dropped a bomb on their position or had they been rounded up and executed by the encroaching infantry?

"It's hard isn't it?" Mahyu broke out of her reverie and looked around at the young officer who had dragged her out of the death throws of their proud Martian nation. "Moving on from those last few hours, for us it was mere days but for everyone else it was a tragedy that happened tens of millennia ago, if they remember at all. It is a link that we share, unique." Mahyu tried to find grief in the soldiers voice and bearing but could only see hope for the future. She could only envy the strength and resilience of the young.

Mahyu turned from the female officer who had escorted her through time and back to a much-changed civilization. Around her the beginnings of life flourished as the seedlings germinated and sprouted in endless rows of hydroponic troughs, which would be their main food supply until they started to terraform the surrounding planets. She had found herself drawn to this place and already she could imagine what it would look like when the crops bloomed and filled this gigantic chamber with a mass of greenery. For her, who had been surrounded by so much death and pain she felt the abundance of life within the greenery quite relaxing.

"It's hard to forget and even harder to forgive," she said as she felt the lieutenant sit beside her – 'Ehri that's what she had said her name was' Mahyu thought distractingly. Despite frequently washing since that day she could still feel the slime of half dried blood that had one coated her hands and encrusted her nails. "Those men and women faced such a bright, exiting and rewarding future, it seems so cruel that they were cut down as easily as they were." Even now among the quiet of the greenery she could almost hear the echo of the mournful wail that had accompanied so much death. She had faced death before, she was a doctor it was almost impossible to avoid even with their level of medical technology, but the scale of death on that day - nothing could have prepared her for that.

"No-one asks you to forgive or to forget Mahyu, it is their memory that drives us on to achieve greater things in the future, and it was their sacrifice that allows us the opportunity to achieve those things." Ehri's sad, almost wistful tone reminded Mahyu more than anything else that as a soldier herself she was closer to the death than most and knew what she was going through. "I think everyone is finding it hard Mahyu and yet we do not have the luxury to grieve our loss."

"Yes, we have a new sovereign. Long live king Ranma." Mahyu's tone was bitter, today of all days she felt her age, every year seemed to grate together as if reminding her how much longer she had lived than the young men and women who would never grow older. At fifty she was barely approaching middle aged but she felt every one of her years today. Ranma had such fire and vision it was hard not to be pulled along, but after the events on Mars, which to her had happened only a few days ago, she struggled to find the point. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally.

Ehri looked at her with a mix of anger and pity, "Do you think that our king is so uncaring so unempathetic that he would drag us along on his quest for glory and riches after what we have just been through?" Mahyu watched as Ehri shook her head sadly her face hardening. "If he could he would rebuild our kingdom for us with his own blood and sweat and gift wrap our homes for us, I see a lot of Serenity in him."

Mahyu shifted uncomfortably, while her loyalty would always be with Mars she had a curious affection for the royalty of the moon kingdom and a respect for what they had achieved. Whether she liked it or not Ranma was the only one that held a hope in restoring even a fraction of what she had lost to Beryl that day.

Yet it was exactly as Ehri had said, every one of the survivors needed years of rest and counseling and what other reason could there be for his mad attempt to restore the empire today but a sense of glory and riches? She herself had seen the similarities between Ranma and Serenity beside the obvious signs that possession of the great crystal granted. It was what had ultimately convinced her to swear loyalty when he had asked.

She just watched as Ehri's face became harder and more glacial beside her own, such a sudden change from the one filled with warmth and fire when she had been talking about the king before. Whatever Mahyu had expected Ehri to say next it wasn't what she blurted out, "Beryl is still alive." Four words brought vivid and graphic memories crashing like a tidal wave and washing away the barriers of control and sanity she had build around the memories of that day.

"Wha.." Seeing as the world as she knew it had been completely destroyed and thousands of years had long since passed, she could only have imagined that the perpetrators of that conflict had since been ground to dust. To hear that they were alive was a shattering revelation, one that she really didn't want to think about. It was little wonder that Ranma had been so frantic about rebuilding defenses and infrastructure. They had been thrashed once – never again.

"Wha.." Mahyu swallowed regaining a small measure of composure, it would appear that the time to grieve and recover had not yet appeared. "What must I do? What can I do?" It was clear that Ehri had assumed the position of her kings mouth piece while he was absent and it made her wonder what occupied so much of her kings time away from the palace. Still Beryl was one threat that she couldn't ignore even if she wanted to.

She stared in confusion as the lieutenant handed her an incredibly detailed ring with an image of a full moon against the setting of a glittering sky. "The king wants you to experience some Terran cultures and provide a stabilizing role if necessary, your empathy and medical experiences will help you greatly when you get there."

"It is one of the more lawless and precarious regions on earth so he would like you to have some insurance in case you run into something that you have difficulty handling." Ehri stared at the ring meaningfully, "this ring will instantly make the king aware of your situation and if you are in real danger nothing will stop him from getting you to safety. Keep in mind that he has up most confidence in you."

Mahyu nervously accepted the ring and slowly slid it onto here forefinger gasping as it seemed to melt through her skin and disappear. 'Not important' she muttered to herself before being led to the throne room. Whatever her king had in mind she had a feeling it would be harder than it at first appeared, considering that she hadn't been told exactly what she was expected to do nor what she would encounter that wouldn't be very hard.

* * *

Ranma smiled, pleased with what he had accomplished that day. Stretching his arms behind his back he winced at the dull pain that shot through his skull, a subtle remainder that he had not fully recovered from his sparring session with Ryoga. In fact if Ehri suspected that he was out here and not in his hospital bed recovering she would skin him alive, king or no.

It was a good thing that she was going to busy running errands for the next couple of hours as she implemented his plans. He had asked her to approach five Martians on his behalf. Reading their profile and listening to Ehri's report had told him a lot about how the refugee's behaved under pressure. Combined with certain skill sets, this had allowed him to finalize his plans for various regions on earth. While he made his presence known here and could see himself directly confronting his enemies in the future it was the refugees and people he picked up along the way who would implement his main strategy – a strategy that would hopefully pass unnoticed until it was far too late.

Serenity just stood invisibly at his shoulder chewing her bottom lip nervously, too preoccupied to comment on his health or the state of his recovery. His fight with Ryoga had been spur of the moment and his rival's allies had been unexpected. Tonight with the moon shining strongly through a lightly clouded sky and the shattered remains of the Furinken School grounds at his feet he was waiting for some very expected guests.

In fact, what made Serentity so nervous was that this meeting would be his first visible gambit in the political scene of empire building. He knew it, she knew it, who ever was manipulating his expected guests knew it, but hopefully his guests would remain oblivious for just a littler longer. "Ahh here they come, I guess I better prepare for their arrival," Ranma announced excitingly as he detected their cautious approach.

It was naïve to think Serenity was only worried about today's meeting though, she had been unusually quite since he had run his simulations. She was quick to offer advice when he asked but he knew and she knew that any advice she gave now would only come into it's own a little later in the game. Shaking his head in amusement at Serenity's apprehensive expression Ranma turned his attention to his preparations.

'It was amazing what you could do with technology and time,' he thought as he powered the powerful illusions that canvassed the school grounds. Ranma grinned as he allowed himself to momentarily be caught up in the illusion. The fog was so thick he could barely see in front of his face, despite that, sound traveled quite clearly. Starting to wander the school grounds and navigate his illusions, he waited for his guest to arrive.

Shadows of mercenaries and heavily armed infantrymen clashed in violent displays of martial prowess and technological savagery, they danced in and out of sight – obscured by the thick fog with only their flashing weaponry visible and the sounds of death and dying unmistakable. Now and again he had to duck flying armored fortresses and gun ships as they swooped down to focus some fire on clumps of men. Illusions they may be but they even made his danger sense tingle.

"Yup, I've really out done myself this time!" Ranma laughed gleefully, breaking the hold of the illusion over him. His guests would not even notice the trap until it was too late, no one should be able to detect the power he was funneling into this illusion from anywhere but inside the illusion. A necessary precaution if his gambit was to work. He couldn't risk tipping his entire hand at this part of the game.

"Don't you think this is a bit much Ranma? You want to unnerve these kids, make them think about what you've said but you don't want to traumatize them. Despite being puppets and soldiers, I don't think they really know what's going on and their experiences haven't really had a big impact on their maturity. This could be more than they can handle," Ranma brushed aside her complaints as he reveled in his power and abilities. Perhaps he had overdone it a little but this was his chance to really show off what he was capable of without it getting back to his enemies. It was an opportunity he doubted would pop up as often as he liked. Besides, perhaps this was exactly the kind of shock that was needed.

"We're getting close to the source of the moon kingdom energy readings. Although the readings have largely faded there remains a residual that is well with the detectable limit for the mercury computer." Ranma grinned at the girl with the computer in anticipation while at the same time glad that he had thought to cut all data access points within the palace. With her computer the illusion would lose much of its desired effect but would add a whole new dimension to his position. He doubted that she was fully aware as to the uses of the device she so casually used.

"Finally, you should have told me we would be traveling to another district." The exasperation in her voice was unmistakable as she leapt over the wall falling deeply into his illusion. Ranma just watched in amusement as she quickly ran into and tried to take on a squad of Beryl's shock troops while dodging the swooping Lunarian gunship. "Ami run away, I'll try to hold them off."

Ranma grinned as he felt the strength of her lightening attacks washing over the troops before some mercenaries swarmed over the troops destroying them to a man and moving on, ignoring the still attacking Senshi. "Calm down Makoto, we seem to be caught in an illusion. Apart from the battle damage nothing can hurt us here – it is similar to my powers with water." 'She's pretty cool' Ranma thought eyeing the blue skirted girl. Her actions had reinforced his original opinion of the girl, if it ever came to alliances she would be a valuable member. In fact if he could somehow break whatever hold the mysterious third player held over her she might naturally drift to his side without too much effort.

"What is this Ami?" asked the blue skirted Shenshi's tall trigger happy companion shivering slightly as the sounds of a particularly vicious skirmish washed over them along with the flashes of fire from distantly firing gunships. 'That would be my cue,' Ranma thought smirking at Serenity before calmly approaching the girls though the imaginary fog.

"This would be the only armed rebellion on earth during Beryl's reign. Despite being sponsored and funded by Serenity and her advisors it was crushed to the last man." Ranma grinned as the girls swung in his direction, one was frantically typing on her computer and the other seemed to be charging another attack. Ranma wasn't too worried, unless they had some other tricks up their sleeves he was firmly in control.

"It is kind off ironic," Ranma continued approaching the girls "although Serenity sponsored the uprising against the young Terran ruler she could not openly support them for fear of sparking open warfare between the two kingdoms. If she had done so then she may have prevented her empires destruction decades later." Ranma's grin widened as the taller girl fired off a lightening strike and her companions typing intensified.

Brushing the lightening strike away in a brash display of power Ranma waved his hand dispelling the illusion he had spent so long building. "Who are you and what do want," he casually eyed the green skirted scout before addressing the more intelligent of the two. It may or may not have been true but he had only first impressions to work from.

"Ami is it? Call off your attack dog." From the moment he had dispelled the illusion it had become obvious that he had been responsible for drawing the two Senshi to the school. His casual dismissal of the taller girls attack and later her threatening stance had established him as someone that would not be easily intimidated by a small show of power. His calculated insult and the way he had addressed the obviously disguised girl immediately got her attention.

It wouldn't do to let them know that any disguise field they employed was useless against a member of the royal family or holder of the Ginzuishou. He would have to take the opportunity to chase up the identities of these puppets, even puppets could prove useful once they had their strings cut and it would be one more card in his deck. "You are mistaken sir, I am Sailor Mercury and my companion is Sailor Jupiter of the sailor scouts we know of no one called Ami." Only the fact that he could see through their disguise field allowed him to see the momentary flicker of surprise and panic that crossed their faces.

"Who are you and why did you trap us in that illusion." Not even the disguise field could hide the anger and fear that shadowed the taller of the Senshi. He almost felt sorry for the two girls. Serenity was right, they really were just little girls playing as soldiers of love and justice with no idea what real war was like. Though by the time he was finished, he had little doubt they would have an intimate knowledge of the subject but today they were seriously outclassed.

"Illusion?" Ranma's tone was clearly mocking, "I'd prefer to call it a recreation, a little piece of history of the kingdom that you are trying to recreate. Surely you recognized the battle, it was a well known turning point of Beryl's reign. All the historians of the day agreed that by crushing a rebellion this size cemented her authority over her throne. If you would like I could have a dig around my library."

He could see that his offer had clearly struck a nerve, the taller of the two was clearly confused and Ami was clearly tempted by his offer despite not knowing who he was or what he stood for. His knowledge of the moon kingdom before its fall seemed to have placed him firmly in the good guy's basket which told him a lot about what they were being told. Still he would have to be careful about what actions he took if he wanted to maintain his anonymity.

"You didn't recognize the battle?" Ranma said in mock confusion and disappointment. "What are your advisors teaching you," he asked shaking his head and faded from view as he slowly employed a technique had developed just for this meeting. He allowed his mocking laugh to fill the battle scared school grounds before disappearing completely.

If he was lucky they would think about what he said before they disclosed the meeting to the one pulling their strings, resulting in a tightening of their leash but not before they begun to question the information they were being fed. An action which could only benefit him, certainly Beryl was not going to be a threat until see could start moving troops in greater numbers so this mysterious player would be the greater threat at present and would require a greater amount of attention.

'All in all things are moving along nicely,' he thought in satisfaction before stumbling and falling badly on the way back to the medical ward. His little illusion had aggravated his injuries he thought in frustration as he was gripped with the feeling of time slipping through his fingers. He sighed sadly, he had played his first card so all he could do now was wait for a response and in the meanwhile his preparations for the inevitable escalation of threat continued.

A/N – A short update, if anyone is an expert in surface analysis you know what's taking my time lately.


	8. Impossibilities and Curiosities

An Empire Reborn

Ch 8: Impossibilities and Curiosities

Nabiki woke gradually to the fierce pounding of her heart and the prickly feel of fear induced sweat coating her body. It had been three days since she had witnessed the brutally destructive fight between Ryoga, the incredibly scarred and psychotic fighter who had ambushed them, and her potential fiancée Ranma on the school grounds and as she had predicted, she had not slept well since.

Half remembered dreams combined with visions of her family being slaughtered, and her home being destroyed with ridiculous ease had fuelled her nightmares and filled her days with worry. Thankfully Furinkan had been closed for the rest of the week while repairs were completed so her sleep deprived and unfocussed mind had not caused her too many problems and she had the rest of the week to sort through some of the issues that were still plaguing her.

She was half torn between confronting Ranma since he was the source of her uncertainties or as she had numerous times in the past, work through her issues herself. Still this situation seemed so big that she had found herself floundering over the last few days and as much as she hated to admit it she was intimidated by Ranma, and a little scared of him.

The fact that no one had heard from or seen Ranma since that fight only added to her fears and helped to fuel her nightmares. Ranma's disappearance worried her more than she had at first realized. In hindsight it was easy to see that Ranma had been suffering from shock and blood loss during the fight.

It had been so easy to overlook when he had displayed such prowess and confidence but she was concerned and then he had mysteriously disappeared and strangely enough his father was even less worried about his health than she was. The amount of blood she had found splashed around the school grounds was not a small amount.

It wasn't that hard to understand why he wasn't too worried either, his father was probably just as capable at facing people like Ryoga as Ranma was. Certainly he hadn't seemed too surprised by the extent of the fight that had destroyed the school grounds and damaged the school buildings.

If anything he seemed confused by the fact that the fight had lasted so long and that his son had allowed himself to be injured in it. That revelation had scared her more than the fight itself had. Hearing from Genma that his son was hugely powerful somehow added more weight than some vague hints from his companion had despite her recent doubts about the reliability of information coming from him.

No Tendo, despite her younger sister's boasting or her father's lifelong martial arts quest, would have lasted a second in a fight with that disfigured and scarred fighter. He could have played with her family as easily as it seemed Ranma had played with him and from what she had seen of his mental state she wouldn't trust him within one hundred kilometres of her family.

As much as she hated to admit it, the engagement had suddenly become much more important to her. As little as she knew about Ranma, she knew of no-one else who could, or would protect her family from such a powerful psychopath.

"Nabiki," a rugged and harsh voice whispered, sounding suspiciously like the wind over a gravel pit. It was a voice that had filled her nightmares in both daylight and night time hours. She knew instinctively that no-one was in her room with her and that it was just her mind playing cruel tricks on her but that didn't stop her from shivering in fright and nervously glancing around for a threat she knew she would never be able to counter.

When she and her sisters had first heard of the engagement from her father she had been quietly resigned to accepting it on behalf of her sisters unless there was clearly something wrong with the match. Akane had showed outrage and Kasumi shared an expression of disappointment with her leading her to promptly assume neither would accept an arranged marriage no matter how set on it her father was.

If the boy had decent prospects, then she wouldn't mind an arranged marriage so much if it would help her family, she could at least rely on the business and political skills she had been nurturing since her mother died to lead a fulfilling life, if not necessarily a happy one. Nabiki knew of more than one way in which she could manipulate and control her prospective fiancé and was already mentally tallying a list.

When Genma Saotome had turned up covered in a bloody and torn rag and looking like he had been hit by a train, she had started to get a sense that something was very wrong. Why had Genma come to the household of his potential in-laws so poorly presented, even if it was the home of an old friend and where was his son – Ranma. Already her mental list was being adjusted and counter strategies being designed for possible scenario's that would see the engagement work out best for her family.

It soon became clear when Genma started to explain to his friend that he no longer supported the engagement, an engagement that had lasted no more than a day in her mind. But even if Genma no longer actively supported the engagement, by staying in their home he was clearly hoping that his son would 'hit it off' with one of the three Tendo sisters.

Besides her father was clearly set on a match between their families, so she didn't feel comfortable with shelving her plans completely. Nabiki just quietly made some contingency plans in her plans in case he hit it off with one of her other sisters.

She had felt both relieved and increasingly nervous at that stage. Without active support for an engagement she and her sisters would no longer been put under pressure to marry as soon as possible but when Genma had admitted that his son was responsible for his bloody state a flash of fear had coursed through her. Would he be a danger to the household? Surely her father would not invite someone so violent into their home? But then her father had already admitted that he knew nothing about the son.

It was the start of what would be almost a week of unsettling and uncontrollable events. Unexplainable and as she would have said mere days ago, impossible. Her careful constructed and defined world of logic and rationality had started to collapse and Ranma had been at the centre of it. She had never felt so lost in her life and she was frantically trying to find a piece of firm ground where she could once again find her equilibrium and do what she was best at, gain control over situations.

Nabiki groaned as she crawled out of her bed shaking her head lethargically to clear it of the bombardments of random thoughts, fears and half thought out plans and clumsily climbed into her old Gi. She had never been a real morning person but then she had never had the motivation before. When Ranma had been attacked and his companion had manhandled her too safety she had never felt so powerless.

It was a blow to her confidence, even more so straight after being out maneuvered so effortlessly by Ranma earlier in an area she had considered her self without peer in.. She had not felt so lost since before her mother had died and so she had thrown herself into some old half remembered Kata's, telling herself morosely that at least they might help to escape a fight a little less scathed.

Even more than that, when she was young they had helped her find confidence that she had always been lacking and achieve a body that she had been so self conscious about when she was younger. Before her mother had died her father had always espoused the benefits of the arts and was always encouraging his younger daughters in their use, but once her mother died everything changed.

"Damn, bloody stairs, who moved them so early in the morning," Nabiki cursed as she stumbled to the dojo. Stubbing her toe and tripping over her shadow in a sleep deprived haze. Her usual strong black coffee forgotten in her rush to get to training, coffee just didn't seem to have the same effect lately. She constantly found herself depressed angry and fearful, often on the same day.

It was her hope that she would once again find comfort in the arts that she had neglected and found unnecessary for so long. After all she had seen what her sister had become after continuing them and had actively chosen not to tread down that path. Brains had always served her more than brawn in the past. But the display a few days ago had shown her how inadequate brains were in the face of directed brawn and it scared her, badly.

Her sisters were useless to talk to. Akane had been skeptical of either fighter's skills, accusing Nabiki of exaggerating their prowess even after she had seen the remnants of their fight. Besides her younger sisters pride didn't need any further encouraging before challenging either boy. Kasumi tried to understand Nabiki's worries but her perennial optimism didn't allay any of her fears.

Ranma's father was more helpful than her own father had been, certainly he seemed wiser than she initially gave him credit for when he had talked about the philosophy her son lived by and urged her to talk to him while her father was just ecstatic that she was worried about Ranma and asked when the wedding would be, entirely missing the point.

Nabiki tried to clear her mind of all the clutter that bombarded it these days as she entered the dojo, barely avoiding running the sliding door of it's rails and assumed a very sloppy stance chuckling quietly at the irony. She had for so long prided her self on her intelligence, wit and clarity of thought that it seemed that she would never need anything more. Yet her she was, desperately trying to regain a fraction of the skill she once had in her family school.

Blinking away the gauze that misted her half closed eyes she started to jerkily move through one of the more basic Kata's of her school. "That is the sloppiest, sorriest, half hearted and disgraceful attempt of that Kata I have ever seen. I could have done better at three."

Nabiki's eyes cleared instantly as adrenaline pumped all the sleepiness out of her body and focused her thoughts on the boy who casually lounged in the corner of the dojo. "I could help you with that," he continued unconcerned at her rigid stance or shocked and fearful expression.

Taking her silence as tacit agreement to his offer of help, he strode over and gently guided her movements with firm hands that she had seen demolish decades old concrete as if it were nothing but wet sand. Too shocked to do anything, Nabiki eased into the corrected stance and slowly restarted the beginners Kata even as her mind desperately tried to sort through the questions she had spent days and sleepless nights thinking about.

"How….who…where.." She croaked out hoarsely from her suddenly dry throat even as she struggled not to flinch every time Ranma corrected her stance and movements with hands that were capable of so much destruction. She felt terribly uncomfortable so close to someone who could rip her in half before she could even blink in surprise or pain.

Ranma sighed sadly as her fearful expression didn't lessen and her movements refused to ease into the smooth movements of the Kata. Stopping his guidance and stepping away from Nabiki her smiled toothily and sat down on the polished wooden boards of the dojo floor.

"I'm sorry. I am so used to the fights that I get into and the destruction that I and others with a level of knowledge in the arts can achieve that I don't think about how it can effect others. I should have stayed long enough to explain. Please, sit with me. Don't be afraid of me, my father has probably already explained that I would never hurt you or your family."

Nabiki slowly felt the panic induced daze recede from her thoughts as Ranma's confidence seemed to fill the room with a calming ambiance. As she calmed for the first time since Ranma's fight with the scarred and brutal Ryoga and felt her thoughts start to regain the focus that she had prided her self for, she noticed that despite Ranma's face being open and seemed welcoming to questions, his eyes continued to move calmly around the dojo for potential threats and were as hard as steal and sharp as diamond.

Swallowing nervously and reminding herself of Ranma's father's words, she focused on his welcoming face and avoided eye contact, they definitely made her too nervous. "Where," she started, slowly starting to build up her own confidence that had been so lacking, "where is your companion? I don't think that I have seen you without her shadowing your every move."

"Oh, Ehri is doing some odd jobs for me that require her unique perspective and expertise. She'll be back soon, I wouldn't worry too much. There is next to nothing on the planet which could harm her."

Nabiki shifted uncomfortably, he still had not really explained who his strange companion was or what she did. Was he deliberately avoiding giving her any information? It was definitely something that needed to be cleared up in light of the engagement and even if Genma thought she was a master of some lost art, Nibiki had her own suspicions of who she was and what she did for Ranma. Still, she had no way to force him to answer and really needed that information; she had never felt so powerless or frustrated in her life.

"But who is she?" Nabiki blurted out before clamping her mouth shut. She would never get anywhere blurting out questions like a novice businesswoman with more money than negotiating skills. Even though she new he already held her at a disadvantage by surprising her when she was sleep deprived, shaken and looked terrible she suddenly found herself determined to ensure that he would not be any threat to her family.

She may have lost her nerve over the last couple of days but slowly she could feel it firming and coming back.

"She works for me of course. I have several business interests that requires constant attention, which due to my schooling I have little time for. She is also very skilled at what she does and a master in her art. A lost skill I believe," Ranma seemed mildly amused by her line of questioning and his hard and ageless eyes never stopped roaming for threats.

Nabiki worked her tongue to try and moisten her dry mouth and swallowed in surprise at his revelation. Business – she would never have seen that coming. A martial arts jock to a business man, how had everyone been fooled so easily. Even as she thought about it she just nodded to herself, being no stranger to holding secrets close to her chest and projecting masks to hide even a hint of those secrets, she was well aware of how he had done it and found she unwilling to EVER play poker with him.

As she examined his answers for a hint more information than they contained, Nabiki was suddenly struck by the expression on his face, toothy smile and confident demeanor and how it acted to, along with his answers, rebuild her lost confidence in herself and to allay fears she may have had since she had watched such casual and impossible destruction. His answers may or not be true, and certainly she doubted she would be able to tell if her was lying but she found herself grateful to the boy, no man before her.

He had suddenly made her realize that the destructive powers they held had always been out there, and that the threat to her family was the same as it always had been, being a martial arts family. While her fears were certainly justified she knew that they would never overwhelm her as much as they had. She had found her anchor and regained her equilibrium and her family would as always come first.

Smiling coyly at the master in front of her, she reassumed the stance that she had started when she first came in, letting her Gi loosen slightly around her chest and taking careful note to incorporate the corrections that Ranma had shown her. "Would you mind running through that Kata again?"" I think I almost have it and I would like to get the next three Kata's mastered by the end of the week."

Ranma's toothy grin disappeared and became something much more genuine as the last of the fear in Nabiki's eyes disappeared and he started to guide her though the steps of the Kata. Neither had mentioned the engagement and judging from what she had pieced together from what her father and Genma had told her, Nabiki wondered whether he was even aware of its existence. 'Even if he isn't,' Nabiki smirked to herself, 'it hardly matters since he has sparked interest from all three Tendo daughters and since he is staying here at the Tendo Dojo, we'll just have to see what happens.'

Nabiki almost felt sorry for him.

* * *

Steven sighed; he feared he might have just made a mistake. It had all been so convincing yesterday, from the visit of a fellow scientist within his field, convincing enough to hold a highly theoretical discussion in high energy physics, to the small container on his desk. Something which was meant to convince him that the job that was offered was both legit and cutting edge.

A well-dressed gentleman of the name of Abha had dropped in unexpectedly and offered him a three-year contract on behalf of a wealthy research institute. When he left, he dropped off a number if he was interested in finding out more.

He would have immediately said no, after all he had a professorship in high energy physics at a well known American university, plenty of funding and almost unlimited access to whatever resources he felt he needed, but his family had been begging him to find something else lately. Something that allowed a little more flexibility in his hours. The professorship took up too much of his time, leaving him with none at all with his two growing sons and baby daughter.

Besides it had been a long time since he had enjoyed a conversation quite so detailed with a college anywhere. His work was little understood, even by eminent people in his own field and to the more applied oriented scientists around the world, his theories were considered nothing more than mathematical fantasy since the engineering did not exist to put his ideas into practice.

Picking up the grey cylinder, Steven started to juggle it between his hands. Abha had left the cylinder on his desk, telling him to investigate the gaseous contents before he made any decisions on the job offer. It was only chance that he had checked out the contents of the small grayish cylinder instead of putting it away until his work load cleared a little and he was glad he had checked its contents, because what he had found astounded him.

Five litres of helium – 3 with a purity of six nines. 99.9999 purity was impossible with even his labs technological facilities and know-how. Then there was what it was continued in, 0.1 of a litre of helium – 3 should never have been able to be just transported in an ordinary cylinder like the one his desk, much less five litres of the stuff. It was radioactive and unstable. The helium - 3 would have broken down to its constituent particles into a more stable mixture long before he had had a chance to check the containers contents, or it should have.

The impossibilities of it aside, its monetary value was priceless to science. Helium – 3 of such purity was a boon to not only his own work, but the work of everyone who was trying to solve the practicalities of sustainable thermonuclear fusion for use as a clean energy source.

He had immediately called the number that Abha had left him and opened negotiations with the lady who had answered. Now that he was waiting in his office for Ehri, at the allotted time he was having second thoughts. His scientific curiosity had been peaked with the technological impossibilities and theoretical implausibility's he had seen, but his families pleadings still came to mind and needed to be addressed.

Did he want to potentially move his family from where they had established themselves or even worse travel to his new job? Should he have talked to his wife first before he had made a completely rash decision about not only his future but his wife's and children's?

Ehri had seemed unconcerned over the phone about such things as work/life balance or pay and conditions. She had just seemed exceedingly pleased that he had called back at all. Some of his colleagues around the world had been a little harder to convince. That had sparked a question that had reverberated around his head for some time and still, to an extent, did.

Who had the resources to head hunt so many top scientists and the technological know-how to produce items like the 5 liters of gaseous Helium-3 on his desk? Was it legal and ethical? He had known more than one scientist who had been tempted by rogue states or large corporations before. Was it worth finding out?

Raking his hand through his thick brown hair, Steven reached for the phone. He would call it off and find something else. Nothing ever came easy and no-one threw money into science these days. Sad really… in his line of work he had access to all the technological wonders that may one day be possible but which lacked funding and vision to bear fruit.

"You will almost certainly regret that decision for the rest of your life." Steven halted, his arm still out stretched for the phone, "Always left wondering what could be possible with the proper vision and drive and how you could have been a part of it all but for one phone call."

Steven blinked at the young woman who so casually mirrored his own thoughts and frustrations of just a minute ago. 'Well,' he thought 'now she's here I may as well see what she or her mysterious benefactor has too offer.'

"The person I am representing is prepared to offer you double your current salary and accommodation for yourself and your family. We have excellent educational and health facilities so all your needs will be adequately meet. However it is a high security area so your movements will be monitored."

Steven sat back and looked at the woman before him. She wasn't as young as he first assumed, with fine lines under her eyes and large calluses over her knuckles. Still to be able to offer such a large amount straight up she was either very confident or very inexperienced in negotiating.

"Please, Ehri, take a seat," he gestured towards a cushioned chair opposite his desk. "I am curious, why was I chosen. Out of all of the skilled and eminent scientist out there, why me? And why have you knot asked about my qualifications?"

Steven watched as Ehri's face lit up in a confident smile with worry, he sensed would not like what she was going to say next. "Oh my benefactor and his advisors looked at your work and although they found a few fundamental flaws in your work they agreed that your science was top quality." He was right he thought grumpily, he didn't like what the woman had said.

At the same time however he was exited. He knew that although his theories were beatifically efficient and mathematically stable by it, when merged with other theories that were equally stable it only came up with infinities and impossibilities. That someone had read his work and understood it well enough to be able to criticize it so thoroughly, that was definitely somewhere he would want to work.

"My benefactor is fairly hands off in his approach, so unless you want or do something stupid he will most likely only set the broadest of goals and take whatever advice you want to lend. But you will have to give me a tentative answers soon because places are filling fast."

His gaze was drawn to the mysterious cylinder full of fuel that when combined with deuterium would most likely require the next step in high energy physics to control the thermonuclear reaction. Any lab that could so easily afford to leave so much priceless material lying around had to be worth taking a look at.

Steven could tell that Ehri was both aware of his thoughtful gaze and expecting his answer. With his family firmly in his mind and his curiosity bubbling away he gave the only answer he could. When can my wife and I visit the facilities?

Ehri's answer was a wide, satisfied grin.

A/N – A big thanks to daydreamsamurai for pre reading this

Thanks


	9. Sowing the seeds of War

An Empire Reborn

Chapter 9: Sowing the seeds of War

_"No state can possibly preserve itself free unless it be a match for neighboring powers."_

_- __Thucydides_

John blinked the sweat out of his eyes, as he lay hidden deep within the sandy dunes of the Iranian desert. He resisted the urge to wipe his brow for fear of exposing his position to the surrounding enemy, an enemy who was close enough to hear. The guttural laughter of the Iranian infantry that surrounded his position echoed across the slowly darkening landscape as they patrolled to close for comfort, obviously looking for something or someone.

They often came close enough that the pungent smell of their sweaty bodies gave away their position with far more ease than the often-deceptive echo of voices. Even now, he still misjudged the distances of sounds in the stark landscape. It would take a lifetime to acclimatize to these conditions effectively.

The sun was low in the horizon and anything that may give away his position was avidly avoided. His M4 Carbine lay heavy in his hands and covered with camouflaged netting and the dog collars that marked his identity rubbed slickly against his chest as his muscles shook with exhausted tension. He wore two; his close friend and fellow soldier would not be coming home after this mission. His last.

Only his partially buried body and camouflaged uniform along with the tricks he had picked up from exercises with the Australians had allowed him and his last remaining mate to stay hidden for so long. To avoid the Iranian patrols for so long. It would be dark soon and that, he hoped, would allow their superior training and technology to come into play and help them to escape the ambush that they had triggered.

He had started this mission with two of his mates accompanying him, veterans in this type of mission and confident of their eventual success. One had been hit early on and they had been forced to leave him or risk exposing themselves and their mission. Nathan had died knowing that his body may never be buried on home soil. It angered him and filled him with a sense of frustration at how the mission was going.

John allowed his eye to flicker to his remaining companion, Matt who like him, was barely breathing as the sun slowly slipped lower in the horizon, too slowly. Their eyes shared the frustration and desperation they both felt. Death remained a real possibility but worse was the potential for exposing their country to a foreign agenda through capture.

The mission had been a SNAFU since the start, almost inevitable when politics were mixed with military planning. Still, his superiors were confident that they had removed the planning process far enough from the bureaucrats and politicians to allow the experience and training of the soldiers carrying out the mission to shine through.

And their mission was important, both to US security and world piece. A nuclear Iran with their fanatical religious dogma served no one. When no one was seen to be acting and the UN was worse than ineffective, the US had acted. John had been proud to be an American at that moment.

That pride had slowly dissipated as the mission progressed. Whatever measures had been taken to separate the political process from the military ones hadn't been enough, not nearly enough. Oh it was a simple enough mission. His team would slip across the border to Iran from Pakistan after dark to investigate and mark any nuclear and weapons facilities that they found for future demolition.

Satellite images and GPS would speed the process enormously and after a month perhaps two the political standoff between Iran and the rest of the world would either be resolved politically or militarily. The forward intelligence provided by assets on the ground would allow for the projection of power that America need to take Iran on if they called its bluff.

The ultimate closing stages of standoff diplomacy, but simple mission or not someone had fucked up.

As soon as they had crossed the border into Iran, the team had started to run into problems. It was almost as if the entire Iranian military knew exactly where they were and where they were heading. This was the fourth time in as many days that they had had to slip patrols and they were running out of supplies. Any drops in these circumstances needed to be avoided and treated with suspicion and there could be no scavenging with such attention paid to the area they were hiding out in.

The Iranians shadowing their movements so closely suggested foul play, his team was good, extremely well trained and equipped with the latest gear. There was no way in his mind that they could have been traced so easily, the three of them had been doing this for too long to be giving away their position.

In fact, tonight he would have to make the decision of whether to continue with their mission or pull out. If caught, they would be the political spark which the United States of America hoped to avoid, disavowed or not, and if he and his team continued to be shadowed so closely then no manner of skill, technological advantage or experience would help them to complete their mission.

The longer they stayed in those circumstances, the higher the risk of capture with little potential return and one of his team had already taken a bullet and would not be returning home to his family.

John had to force himself not to jump then when the sudden roar of engines filled the predawn dessert, easily drowning out the snatches of conversation that broke the previous stillness. The sounds of Arabic conversations became more frantic and hurried as John huddled tighter into the sand as he felt the harsh vibrations of multi-ton vehicles traveling on caterpillar tracks speeding too close to his position for comfort.

'It would be ironic' he thought sharing a confused look with Mathew who huddled beside him, 'to escape the Iranian infantry only to be run over by a tank'.

'But where did they come from?' He asked himself in confusion as sporadic gunfire and pain filled screams light up the air. Vehicles of that size could not be hidden and were poor at espionage work, there was no way they could have snuck up on them or the Iranians and yet unless his sensors had failed him that is exactly what happened. He had not heard or felt the rumbling of their approach, or the frantic fortification of the Iranian position. One moment they had been patrolling, the next tanks were overrunning their position.

It defied belief and he desperately wanted to have a look but short of putting his head up he had to rely on his other senses. Visual confirmation would have to wait.

Bullets thudded into the sand around him and whizzed uncomfortably close to their positions but from the sounds of combat going on nearby the Iranians were having a far harder time of it. Only the metallic clang of small arms fire striking heavy shielding of artillery confirmed to his experienced ear that the Iranians were not massacring their own. Over it all the roar of engines and the vibrations generated by tones of tread stirring up the sand drowned out the worst of the sounds of dying.

John glanced at his companion as the sound of rockets detonating momentarily drowned out even the roar of combat. His ears popped as the concussive blast ripped over his position and hot shrapnel sizzled loudly in the sand. It appeared that the Iranians were getting desperate.

Then slowly the sounds of small arms fire petered out and the fearful, pain filled cries stopped. Replaced by the heavy smell of blood, sweat and death. Such a viscous dogfight filled John with a deep apprehension. He knew of no power on earth that held the power to drop such firepower in the middle of an Iranian troop, effectively massacring them with little apparent effort.

Crunch

Heavy combat boots stepped out onto the battle field and John gripped his M4 tighter as sweat threatened to drop into his eyes, the sun still had not dropped far enough for him and his last remaining subordinate to slip off into the darkness of the desert and he didn't fancy trying to slip past whoever had won the battle he had just witnessed.

Crunch

"Unit Sierra Delta Fower Tree Niner, continue with the mission parameters," bellowed a voice that could have been mistaken for his old drill sergeants. Once again the roar of multiple engines crescendo and the ground shock with the vibrations of tones of heavy weaponry. Several large booms of aircraft breaking the sound barrier preceded the slowly receding rumble of tanks leaving the area.

"As for you two soldiers, don't make me come and get you. It will be painful for you and regretful for me."

A less experienced soldier may have succumbed to the shock of surviving the cluster-fuck, between units of the Iranian army and an unknown attacker that just went down and surrendered. But John had already lost one man and a show of force such as the one he had just witnessed did not convince him that his or Mathew's position had been compromised.

CrunchThunk

The sound of a combat boot compressing the loose sand that had previously been churned up by combat so close to his to his ear caused him to wince but the picture of a combat knife expertly positioned between his partners shoulder blades, millimeters from his partners spine, made him want to jump up and start spraying. That, he was sure that was the intention and he doubted he would be anymore successful than the Iranians had been if he tried.

The injury was not fatal but very very painful. He could see Mathews face drawn in pain and his teeth clenched in an attempt not to scream.

"Don't make me kill your mate to prove a point soldier."

John weighed up his options before sighing and slowly raising from his position, silently motioning for his partner to follow. At least by exposing their position they had an opportunity to see who and what had gone down.

He was not surprised at seeing the massacre of Iranian troops; they had been picked apart by what looked to be numerically superior and better-armed forces. Deep tread marks in the sand showed the presence of some kind of heavy vehicle and the condition of the bodies showed why it was not a good idea to get shot.

His quick visual inspection of the battlefield confirmed what he had heard. What surprised him was the relatively young Asian man that stood relaxed in the middle of the carnage with the look and stance of a seasoned and supremely confident soldier.

Combat amour was worn with apparent ease and flexibility and he was armed to the hilt. Some of the weapons he didn't even recognize and John had been trained to recognize even the exceedingly rare weapons, it was what he did. The way the man stood in the middle of so many ripped and torn bodies was very intimidating as he was sure it was intended to be.

It was obviously not the first battlefield that the Asian soldier had seen or even participated in, even the hardest soldiers he knew found such scenes hard to bear and yet the young man stood with a quiet confidence amongst it all. It was disconcerting and reinforced John's caution in approaching the situation he now found himself in.

Even his bellowing and commanding voice from earlier lacked a trace of an accent, the mark of a seasoned diplomat. Everyone held an accent and even if the man before him had grown up in an English speaking country he would have expected one. No, in his opinion English was not his first or last language. It was he knew a deadly combination, expert soldier and career diplomat, only the very very best combined brains and brawn to devastating effect and if the man in front of him was one of them, then they were in the shit.

John didn't see the rest of the attacking force or any of the heavy weaponry but he gently disarmed just in case. He had heard the heavier machinery leave but could not account for the rest and just because he could not see the force that took these soldiers down did not mean that they were not there. His mission was now a complete failure. It tasted like ash in his mouth.

"You soldier, where betrayed, you both were." John's eyes flickered in surprise as the Asian man pulled a manila folder with the white house seal emblazoned proudly on its cover and threw it over the bloody corpses, streaking the blood of the dead across the pristine pages.

Exchanging a guarded look with his fellow captured soldier, John reached down to look at the folder. Disbelieving everything the man said at face value. Although he had never been captured before, he had been drilled in what to expect and even put through some of the more common forms of questioning their nation had expected to be used against any of their captured troops.

He understood well that he was in this stage now. Just because the man did not look like he was with the Iranians, nor used knives in his questioning, yet, did not mean squat and so he was on his guard.

They would try to break him for information, just as they would try to break enemy combatants if their situations were reversed. John doubted that there would be a rescue and so he was determined to last as long as he could, constantly on guard for any escape opportunities.

Looking briefly at the folder he opened it and took a look. It appeared to be his case file and although he thought about the possibility of it being doctored, small details of discipline matters confirmed to him its validity. Further into the file, he found particulars about his current mission and started at the mission classification in disbelief.

STATUS: LEAKED AND DISAVOWED

"What…." He croaked as he passed the folder to his companion with shaking hands. His anger and frustration at the mission returning in a wave of emotion, his pride vanished as the words 'LEAKED AND DISAVOWED' flashed through his head. The anger and frustration was reflected in Mathews pain filled face as he flicked through the folder.

"I know what you were trying to do," the man said in a sympathetic voice. "But rebel republicans exposed you for political reasons, a tabloid article here, a senate inquiry there and here we both are. You, betrayed and captured, me exploiting an opportunity and offering you a job."

Blinking unsteadily, John steadied his nerves and refocused his attention away from the damning dossier and back to the armored man in front of him. "See, there I was, forming my own security company when I stumbled into the plot in Washington. I find it reprehensible that they would betray such a fine soldier and asset for such petty reasons and so I acted."

"Why us," Mathew croaked from beside him, clearly struggling with the pain of the knife wound.

"A good question," The man acknowledged with a tilt of his head as he approached them. "Quite simply, I am gathering the best and you are now out of a job."

John sighed, they didn't really have a choice and if the Asian was to be believed then returning to Washington wasn't really an option. He had heard about some of his mates from back home moving from the army and working for better pay and conditions in private firms and something about that dossier felt real. His gut had lurched when he had seen it.

"OK"

"Well, the first order of business is to get your friend patched up then. I am Ranma," he said as he finished his approach. John nodded and then did jump in surprise when an inky black hole appeared beside them. "Lets go, leave your weapon you wont need it."

John and Mathew cautiously approached the inky blackness with apprehension. If this was how the Iranians had been ambushed then Ranma held a huge tactical advantage. "Well get in," he heard before being roughly shoved through the portal and stumbling on the other side.

The desert had been transformed into a hospital room of some kind, computer and medical equipment surrounded hospital beds. The desert wind that had been whipping sand into his hair and down his clothes had vanished and a doctor appeared to guide Mathew to a bed.

"Welcome, you start today. Get some rest you have a lot of training before you meet the rest of the troops. You will need to report to lieutenant Ehri in the morning," announced Ranma before stalking out and leaving John wondering about but not regretting the decision he had just made.

Back in Iran, several attacking platforms began emitting an IFF signature that matched Israeli warplanes. They had been programmed with several locations that included the countries nuclear program and several biological weapons sights.

The destruction of the targets was recorded both by neighboring countries and US spy planes and would reverberate around the world for years. That single action of sabotage and misdirection, hidden from the world, would change everything.

* * *

Setsuna stared blankly at the time gates. For millennia she had manipulated humanity without a single concern that there may be the slightest flaw in her plans. Every event she predicted had come true, every plan had come to fruition.

Her participation in the messier ends of the conflicts she had encouraged and manipulated over the centuries had honed the massive power that she had been granted through the silver millennium artifact. Around her the gates glowed with an ethereal power and although it had not spoken to her since she had become its guardian she never doubted that it could and would if there was need.

But for all her power and knowledge, she felt uncertainty and that scared her more than anything had since the moment that she had become a god among mortals.

Always in the past, events unfolded as she had foreseen, her plans were executed to the utmost efficiency and she had never failed to carry out her objectives. Now, she didn't even know if her plans were being followed or if events were slipping unknowingly through her fingers.

The uncertainty ate at her.

Around her, the bunker that housed the time gates stood 0.1 percent out of phase to the rest of the universe. It was an ultimate defense but also its greatest flaw. To those that could not detect such a shift, it was as if it didn't exist. Certainly that was the case today and even as she had found out, during the invasion by Queen Beryl.

To those that had the technology to detect it, it proved to be a honey pot and she had to constantly keep an eye out for survey drones looking for relics of long dead and technologically advanced civilizations of other races that they could pillage lest she attract more trouble than she could cope with before her plans were complete.

The occasional galactic criminal or explorer was one thing but until her plans reached fruition an invasion by a race with enough technology to detect the time gates was something she fought to avoid. She had to destroy sensor drones with an increasing regularity and just today she had destroyed one that she recognized.

Oh, it wasn't identical but similar enough that she could imagine that it belonged to the same people. Two sensor drones being destroyed in the same sector of space attracted attention and she was nowhere near the point were she could realistically accelerate her plans of Empire.

Putting the possibility of invasion aside, she watched as the silent alarm that monitored the life signature of Metalia sounded within the time gates. At least there, there was no question of her plans going awry. When the life signature of Metalia increased past the detection threshold she had set for the Mercury computer the school girls she had empowered would be able to track the dread spirit down and finish the threat posed by Queen Beryl once and for all. This would leave her, Setsuna –guardian of the time gates, the sole and unquestioned power in the region.

Once that happened then her plans could move forward without too much trouble. The threshold she had set was low enough that the power behind Queen Beryl was still asleep and locked in the prison that Queen Serenity had placed her in. Though at the rate which the signature was raising, the dread spirit was waking and it would not take it long once that happened to break free from its prison.

It set a finite period of opportunity for her soldiers to act and act she had no doubt they would, with a little bit of encouragement from her puppets. They had to act soon, because as much power as she had empowered them with and despite the artifacts she had given them, they were no match for an escaped Metalia and Queen Beryl. A battle fought amongst the ancient queen and her dread spirits prison was the only option that guaranteed success at this stage of their training and development.

Setsuna's eyes glittered as she thought about the first time she had found out about Metalia's influence over Queen Beryl. The legend of the Moon Kingdom and its conflict with Queen Beryl of earth had not yet been ground to dust and whispers still passed orally amongst the seedier regions of the once great earth cities.

Still young to her role she had immediately incorporated the new knowledge into her plans, knowing that such a power would not be bound forever. Indeed the latest readings had proved her correct and such a being proved a great threat to her dominance.

What really concerned her greatly however was not the awakening of Metalia or the possibility of her release, nor the likelihood of alien invasion but the events that consumed the nations of earth.

She had not foreseen at this stage of the earths development a major war being started and fought in the Middle East. In fact she had been subtly moving the world away from larger interstate conflicts so as to prepare the world for a new age dominated by Crystal Tokyo.

The fact that war was flaring in the region and threatened to spill over to neighboring regions, with the entire world threatened with destabilization as a result proved to be both an opportunity and a hindrance. From her experience in the past, a destabilized world order provided greater prospects for manipulation and outright forcing outcomes into her corner as corruption flourished among political infrastructure.

But the fact that events had gone the way they had, so unexpectantly, combined with the sensor drone at the same time as the awakening of Metalia caused her deep concern. Despite staring at the time gates she had yet to find inspiration or certainty that her plans were on track. For all she new the plans were slipping through her fingers.

She still had not forgotten the relic that had found its way into the solar system only to self-destruct. Perhaps it was time to visit the moon searching for anything she might have missed on her passed forays? After all, the moon had been the kingdoms ancient capital so if anything had survived it was most likely to be there.

Setsuna growled in annoyance and frustration, "After Queen Beryl has been dealt with. Not long now."

Before the war between Queen Beryl and Serenity of the Moon Kingdom and consequent downfall of civilization across the solar system, the asteroid belt, which lay between Mars and Jupiter, was the industrial center of the kingdom. The war almost resulted in the complete destruction of all habitable biospheres in the system and whipped out huge tracts of infrastructure leaving only a few scattered and sealed military bases due to the ultimate blitzkrieg tactics utilized by Beryl.

* * *

The large volume of space and mineral rich planetoids that made up the asteroid belt located in the middle of the kingdom provided an ideal location to fuel the multitude of shipyards, trading centers and manufacturing hubs which supported the kingdoms way of life. Everyone benefited from the vast resources and excess manufacturing capacity that fueled the rich lifestyles and high living standards that were enjoyed kingdom wide.

Such vital infrastructure to the military and economic wellbeing of the empire was also among the first targets to be destroyed when Queen Beryl swept through the system on her quest of destruction.

For the rebirth of the great kingdom that once strode the system and its expansion into the stars to take place, then the massive industrial center that once filled the area amongst the asteroids would need to be rebuilt.

More than that, for a sustained capacity to attack enemies and defend itself, the industrial center needed to be restored. Surplus military supplies from before the fall would only provide a stopgap solution to any military conflict that the kingdom faced and the projection of military might was vital to the state.

Over billions of years, and a multitude of collisions, a small percentage of asteroids yielded almost purely metallic compositions. The rocky layer had fragmented off leaving the core exposed. Such a class of asteroids provided the perfect base for the rebuilding of such a vast industrial center.

To this end, over a hundred dense metallic spheres rocketed out from the hidden palace on the moon an on towards carefully targeted asteroids. Each sphere contained half a billion micro-machines that would provide the building blocks upon which an automated industrial sector could be build.

Neither the technology nor the sensors existed on earth to detect the fast moving objects, nor the tightly compressed beam of microwaves that provided both updated trajectory information and power to the extensive and technologically complex systems.

Slamming into asteroids that dwarfed the spheres by many orders of magnitude, they quickly broke apart into their micrometer parts and started the construction of the latest modular systems, which would allow for the harvesting of the rich source of minerals they had landed on. From there, it would be a simple and rapid process of building upon the modules already constructed, quickly expanding capacity.

Schematics and updated instructions flowed from the palace on the moon in tightly controlled bursts and over the next seventy-two hours the first of the modules would begin to take shape.

The latest ruler of the Moon Kingdom didn't intent to just restore what had been lost however. He had learned well the lessons of the previous ruler and the almost complete destruction of their kingdom. No he intended to aggressively expand the area he had direct control over such that no one could threaten them or bring them so close to extinction again.

To that end, fully one third of the schematics that were broadcast to the micro-machines where those of powerful weapons platforms. Weapon platforms that contained technology that had the benefit of millennia of polishing and fine-tuning by the greatest supercomputer ever built.

Once the weapon platforms were online and the shipyards had started to rebuild the lost fleets then the Moon Kingdom would be reborn and the descendants of Beryl and her people would either submit or be assimilated. Diplomacy had been tried and it had failed. Yes, the new ruler had definitely learned the lessons of the past and looked eagerly to the future.

* * *

Tom Dupree, 44th president of the United States was an anomaly. An experienced naval officer, a leader of men, he would neither classify himself as a dove or a hawk, instead he mingled comfortably with both. He was also a democrat.

Tom was also exactly what America needed after economically and militarily overstretching in the days and years after September 11th, both in restoring America's unrivaled superpower status, tactically, technologically and numerically and in constraining inflation and booming foreign debt.

So far, he had been moderately successful in both and America was once again enjoying the fruits of its success but the debriefing he was currently receiving from his chief of staff scarred him in ways that another September 11th would not. Around him in the situation room of the west wing where he was being briefed, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and his more senior generals and admirals echoed the gravity of the situation.

Key knowledge assets were disappearing world wide, from under their noses. Since the cold war, the United States had kept tabs on key researchers and engineers world wide. Their areas of expertise in anything from fundamental physics, applied nuclear and biological work, even IT infrastructure, represented both a potential future assets and a dangerous threat to national security.

They were constantly monitoring not only who had the knowledge and expertise but also the resources to use it in nefarious means. And his intelligence had not even noticed them and their families disappearing until over thirty worldwide had vanished.

The count currently stood at near to fifty and that was only the people he had been keeping an eye on, who knew how many more out their had vanished and would continue to vanish. Even before the briefing it became clear to him that someone was building an enormous amount of capability and expertise, and that held serious security implications for his country.

"Putting aside that I am only hearing about this now, has there been any increase in chatter from the usual suspects?" he directed at the Secretary of State.

"Mr. President, it has become clear to us in the intelligence community that a new and incredibly well resourced player has emerged. They have been smart in avoiding the usual contacts and…."

"So," Tom interrupted in disbelief, "you have no idea who they are or there intentions?" Out of the huge reforms and increases in funding that had poured into the intelligence community over the last five years he found it implausible that such an organized and resourced exodus of scientist and engineering capability could be conducted under there noises without leaving some traces.

"No, Mr. President." Tom shook his head in disgust. Whoever they were could be planning the most devastating attack on US soil in there history and they had nothing. "But we do know how they are doing it. We are getting reports that some of the scientists have been offered a new job with enormous perks before disappearing."

"Well…" he started before being interrupted by a somber looking Secretary for Defense.

"Mr. President, this has just become a lesser priority. I have just received word that Israel has bombed nuclear sites in Iran." Tom swiveled his chair to the massive plasma screen at the back of the situation room and looked in horrified silence at the map of Iran.

"I have marked the nuclear sites that we were aware of, the others judging from satellite images are what are left of underground facilities that we were not and judging from atmospheric testing some of those were biological research labs."

Tom wanted to scream in frustration as he watched the phones begin to ring around the room. What was wrong with people? "Why didn't the Israeli's let us know? And more to the point, if they had intelligence of that nature that we didn't WHY WEREN'T THEY SHARING IT!" He demanded.

"We have a denial of responsibility from Israel, Sir," announced the Secretary of Defense from his phone. "They are claiming it was a set up."

"Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and ceased all oil exports, Oil prices are spiking." Tom sat in stunned silence as the Secretary of state announced the worsening of the situation. Even today most western democracies were dependant on oil. While it was Iran that was attacked, he felt in his gut that it was the US that was being targeted but who and why? Was it linked to the disappearing Scientists? And who had the power to pull off something like this, certainly no third rate Middle Eastern dust bowl.

"Enough! People we need answers, Don, confirm responsibility for the attack." He said pointing at the Secretary of Defense. "Al, we need a response, now, deal with it and find out if the disappearing knowledge assets are in any way connected." The secretary of state nodded, "Everyone else, we are on yellow alert. Generals, prepare some scenarios, you have 24 hours. Get to work people."

Tom's blood boiled as his body prepared himself for combat. He needed to remind himself that he was no longer, nor ever likely, to engage in combat situations but today's events couldn't have targeted the US's vulnerabilities any better. First their expertise was being stripped and then the oil supply was disrupted. Their economy might not stand the shock and if war was coming recession was the last thing he needed.

No, he needed information fast and if war was coming he vowed that America would be ready for it.

Thanks to daydreamingsamurai for pre-reading this – he does great work


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